Joseph Mallord William Turner

Caernarvon Castle from the West

1799

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Lancashire and North Wales Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 225 × 329 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D01945
Turner Bequest XLV 23 a

Catalogue entry

Made with the page turned horizontally, this is one of three studies in this book of Caernarvon Castle made from a boat in the Menai Strait. The other two are on folios 21 verso and 22 verso (D01941, D01943). Here the boat has moved round to the west, less close in than in the sketch D01943, and preparing to enter the estuary of the River Seiont, where Turner made three more drawings on the versos of folios 24, 25 and 26 (D01947, D01949, D01951). The Eagle Tower dominates the composition in the centre, with the town encircled by its walls in front of the castle, to the left; the mountain in the right background is Moel Eilio. For the Seiont, see the entry for D01947.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

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