On the grounds of its size and colour scheme, Eric Shanes has very tentatively suggested this as a study for the watercolour
Warwick Castle, Warwickshire of about 1830 (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester),
1 engraved in 1832 for the
Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions:
T04594,
T04595), or for the watercolour
Pembroke Castle, Wales of about 1829 (Holburne Museum, Bath),
2 engraved in 1831 for
England and Wales (Tate impressions:
T04579,
T04580,
T06094).
3 He also proposes a link
4 to the painting
Boccaccio Relating the Tate of the Birdcage, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1828 (Tate
N00507);
5 this features a glowing white tower in the distance, based on John Nash’s East Cowes Castle which Turner had visited on the Isle of Wight (compare for example the 1827 blue paper study, Tate
D20844; Turner Bequest CCXXVII a 41).
An inconclusive case might be made for any of these subjects, but this elemental image of a tower, contrived by the simple means of leaving the bare white paper reserved against a dark sky, may not necessarily have been made with reference to a specific subject, and any resemblance to Warwick, Pembroke or East Cowes may simply be fortuitous.
See also the introductions to the present subsection of tentatively identified but unrealised subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
