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 Clear or Hazy Skies > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Clearing Sky above a Landscape c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Clearing Sky above a Landscape’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?A Clearing Sky above a Landscape c.1820–40
D25206
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 84
Watercolour on white wove paper, 305 x 488 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘84’ bottom right (faint)
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Eric Shanes has noted, this sheet was called ‘“The blue sky” by Finberg, but could just as easily be a seascape’.1 It may represent a patch of blue sky opening through white clouds, while parallel horizontal elements in the yellow area at the centre may be the beginnings of an architectural form. Compare the similarly slight Tate D25295 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 173).
Unusually, this sheet does not bear a stamped full Turner Bequest Roman section and Arabic suffix numbers at the bottom right corner, along with the equivalent red ink item number; the stamped numbers are often repeated on the verso, but this one’s being laid down prevents examination.
1
Shanes 1997, p.101; see Finberg 1909, II, p.820.
Technical notes:
There is prominent brown staining towards the top right.
Verso:
Blank; laid down.

Matthew Imms
March 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Clearing Sky above a Landscape 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-a-clearing-sky-above-a-landscape-r1183189, accessed 26 April 2024.