Joseph Mallord William Turner

Clouds and Rain above a Landscape

c.1820–40

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Colour Studies of Clouds, Storms and a Rainbow
Medium: Watercolour on paper
Dimensions: Support: 281 × 436 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D25262
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 140

Catalogue entry

Turner evokes blustery rain clouds over a featureless, vaguely undulating landscape. Eric Shanes has suggested Yorkshire as a possible setting, without further comment other than noting the sheet’s 1815 watermark,1 possibly in relation to Turner’s 1816 tour including that county, addressed by David Hills ‘Tour of Yorkshire 1816’ section in the present catalogue, when the weather was notoriously wet. There are a number of ‘colour beginnings’ which establish more specific landscape settings in relation to that tour, such as Tate D25255 and D25492 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 133, 369).

See Shanes 1997, p.103.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘43’ centre right, upside down; inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘AB 150 P | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII. 140’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 140’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
March 2016

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