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

The view at the top is to the north across the River Thames from Hurst Park, East Molesey, to the domed and porticoed rotunda of the Temple to Shakespeare, a garden feature in the grounds of Garrick’s Villa at Hampton about a mile up the Thames from Hampton Court. The house was home to the renowned actor David Garrick (1717–1779) from the 1750s and subsequently redeveloped for him in Palladian style by Robert Adam (1728–1792).1 There is a more detailed thumbnail study of the ‘temple’ immediately below, with numerical notes of the arrangement of its columns from the side and front. Ian Warrell identified this view and the less detailed rendering on folio 20 verso (D20762; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 20) in relation to a ‘colour beginning’ of the scene (Tate D25145; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 23); see also folio 19 verso (D20761).2 The wooded scene at the foot of the page is presumably another Thames view in the vicinity, and the two women in large bonnets accompanied by children with hoops noted separately on the right were presumably observed nearby.

The ‘temple’ remains in good repair, but the house was damaged by fire in 2008.3 Despite Turner’s familiarity with the Thames in this area and his extensive depictions of nearby sites, sometimes in terms of their literary and historical associations,4 these pencil sketches and the subsequent slight colour study are the only identified explorations of the present subject. For other views in the Hampton Court area see under folio 2 verso (D20736).

Technical notes:

As discussed in the sketchbook’s introduction, this leaf’s blank recto does not have a Tate ‘D’ accession number. It was prepared with a grey wash, and is inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘21’ and stamped in black ‘CCXXVII – 21’ at the bottom right.