Joseph Mallord William Turner

Made with the page turned horizontally, this is one of eight exterior drawings of Cassiobury in this sketchbook; see also D02215 (continued on D02219), D02216–D02218, D02221, D02222, D02227 (Turner Bequest XLVII 38 (continued on 42), 39, 40, 41, 44, 45, 50), together with an interior surviving as two fragments (D02220, D02234; Turner Bequest XLVII 43, 57). Turner made them in compliance with a commission for a set of watercolour views from the Earl of Essex (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Watford Museum; private collection; private collection).1 He visited the Hertfordshire house during the summer or autumn of 1807, that is, some years after the 1802 Swiss subjects which preceded them (see the sketchbook’s Introduction and proposed concordance).

The artist Joseph Farington commented in his diary for 15 November 1807 that ‘Charles Long, Lord Essex etc., cannot be brought to relish [topographical watercolourist Thomas] Hearne’s drawings; but think them cold and tame imitations. Turner has lately made drawings of Cashiobury [sic] which have an effect which pleases them.’2 Like several of the views of Fonthill that Turner had drawn in this book in 1799 (see for example D02180, D02190, D02228; Turner Bequest XLVII 3, 13, 51), this prospect of Cassiobury presents the distant building beyond a screen of trees. From the full-leaved trees in these drawings we must infer that he visited in late summer; an alternative reading of Turner’s inscription is ‘Nutting’, to indicate people looking for hazelnuts (in autumn); but the reading ‘Nettles’ seems more probable.

Technical notes:

For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 48, see the Introduction.

Verso:

Verso: smear of blue-grey colour