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

The gatehouse that dominates Stonyhurst from this viewpoint was erected by Sir Richard Shireburn in the early 1590s; the four storeys of its front elevation bear the orders Tuscan or Roman Doric, Ionic and Corinthian (twice), as noted on the drawing by Turner. It is surmounted by two baroque cupolas, added by Sir Nicholas Shireburn in 1712. Late in the century the house passed to the Roman Catholic Weld family, who in 1794 offered it to the Society of Jesus, who had fled France in the wake of the Terror. Much building work took place in the course of the nineteenth century; Stonyhurst is still a Catholic School.

The battered state of this leaf indicates that it was subjected by Turner to much use: he referred to it when making the finished watercolour (private collection),1 engraved in 1801 for Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s History of Whalley (Tate impression: T05933), and returned to it much later for a watercolour of about 1828 (private collection),2 engraved in 1830 for the series Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04560, T05085).

The number cited by John Ruskin in his note on this leaf, ‘378’, is not identified. It does not correspond to the Turner Bequest Schedule number of this book (140), and is indeed not listed in Finberg’s Inventory,3 being omitted from the Schedule altogether.

Technical notes:

The leaf is torn, creased and stained, as discussed above.