J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Architectural and Other Subjects c.1797 ... > Drawings Connected with the Kent and ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Outline Studies of Foliage Forms 1798

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Outline Studies of Foliage Forms’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Outline Studies of Foliage Forms 1798
D40246
Watercolour on white card, 152 x 178 mm
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom left
Inscribed in pencil ‘XXIX . J’ bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These exercises, not mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory,1 are similar to those found on the backs of some of Turner’s copy drawings for pupils (see the ‘Copy-Drawings 1794–8’ section of this catalogue), and it is possible that the repeated subject on the recto (D00715; Turner Bequest XXIX J) was executed for a student. Despite scholarly doubts – both Finberg and C.F. Bell questioned the authorship of this page2 – it seems to be by Turner himself.

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.59.
2
See undated MS notes by Finberg (died 1939) and Bell (died 1966) in copies of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.59.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Outline Studies of Foliage Forms 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-outline-studies-of-foliage-forms-r1174986, accessed 25 April 2024.