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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Colour Studies of the Sun, Skies and ... > Colour Studies of the Sun and Clouds at ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Sun Rising or Setting over Land c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Sun Rising or Setting over Land’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Sun Rising or Setting over Land c.1820–40
D25258
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 136
Watercolour on white wove paper, 286 x 436 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘136’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 136’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Ian Warrell has noted this work among ‘colour beginnings’ with a central sun, reserved as bare paper, along with are Tate D25186, D25332 and D25514 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 64, 210, 390).1 For further ‘colour beginnings’ focusing on a centrally placed sun, see the Introduction to this subsection.
1
See Warrell 1991, p.40.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘AB 150 P | O’ top left (rubbed); inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII 136’, stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 136’ and inscribed in pencil ‘D.25258’ bottom right.
There is some offsetting from a straight edge, possibly watercolour transferred from other similar sheets, and what may be a paw print from one of the cats which roamed Turner’s house and studio1 (compare the verso of Tate D25476; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 353).

Matthew Imms
March 2016

1
See for example James Hamilton, Turner: A Life, London 1997, p.304.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Sun Rising or Setting over Land c.1820–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-sun-rising-or-setting-over-land-r1183170, accessed 25 April 2024.