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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Lowland and River Colour Studies c.1820 ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A River with Castle on a Hill beyond Trees c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A River with Castle on a Hill beyond Trees’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A River with Castle on a Hill beyond Trees c.1820–40
D25335
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 213
Watercolour on white wove paper, 233 x 323 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘213’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 213’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On the skyline of the ridge towards the left, a castle-like building glows white against the blue sky, having been reserved as blank paper. More developed aspects of the foreground include trees and a footbridge.
Eric Shanes has suggested (probably fortuitous) similarities to various riverside subjects: Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire (see under Tate D25489; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 366); Morpeth Castle, Northumberland (compare the 1801 Helmsley sketchbook; Tate D02511; Turner Bequest LIII 29a); Cockermouth Castle, Cumbria (since reidentified as Egremont Castle in the drawings he mentions from the 1809 Petworth sketchbook; Tate D07528, D07532; Turner Bequest CIX 16, 20);1 or in relation to the watercolour Junction of the Greta and the Tees of about 1832 (currently untraced),2 engraved in 1834 for Walter Scott’s Rokeby (Tate impression: T04955).3
Other views in this section with distant towers or castles among hills include Tate D25267, D25321, D25351, D25359 and D25377 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 145, 199, 229, 237, 254)
1
See Shanes 1997, p.194.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.429 no.1086, reproduced.
3
See Shanes 1997, p.99.
Verso:
Blank; laid down.

Matthew Imms
December 2015

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A River with Castle on a Hill beyond Trees c.1820–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2015, 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-river-with-castle-on-a-hill-beyond-trees-r1183221, accessed 25 April 2024.