Joseph Mallord William Turner

Colchester Castle

c.1824

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 115 × 118 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D18296
Turner Bequest CCIX 80 a

Catalogue entry

Rendered with the sketchbook turner upside town, here Turner has drawn a study of Colchester Castle in Essex. The stronghold was designed by Gundulf, the Bishop of Rochester, for William the Conqueror.1 Built between 1069 and 1076, it is constructed on the foundations of a Roman temple dedicated to Claudius.2 Turner has produced a further study of the castle on the folio opposite (Tate D18297; Turner Bequest CCIX 81).
Other sketches of Colchester are found on Tate D18164–D18166, D18169, D18171, D18186, D18275–D18276; Turner Bequest CCIX 3a–4a, 6a, 7a, 16, 61–62.

Alice Rylance-Watson
January 2015

1
‘History’, Colchester and Ipswich Museums, accessed 29 January 2015, http://www.cimuseums.org.uk/article/10838/History
2
Ibid.

Read full Catalogue entry

Explore

You might like

Left Right

In the shop

Browse the shop