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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Scotland 1801-10 > Watercolours Derived from the 1801 ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Colour Study: Inveraray c.1808-10

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Colour Study: Inveraray’ c.1808-10
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Colour Study: Inveraray c.1808–10
D03641
Turner Bequest LX J
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 670 x 1013 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman 1808’
Blind–stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Stamped in black ‘LX – J’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a large preparatory study for an unexecuted watercolour; the composition is perhaps derived from the ‘Scottish Pencil’ drawing, Tate D03389 (Turner Bequest LVIII 10). A small watercolour view of Inveraray in Manchester Art Gallery1 follows the compositional layout of this sheet closely, but it is possible that Turner embarked on this larger variant subsequently, having been attracted to the neo–classical architecture of the town, especially the conspicuous pedimented and pilastered front of the parish church in which he may have seen possibilities for a more substantial work in the classicising manner he adopted in the years around 1805, for instance in his view of the Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake of about 1805 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven).2
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.340 no.352, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.342 no.370, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Colour Study: Inveraray c.1808–10 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-colour-study-inveraray-r1179843, accessed 25 April 2024.