Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner stayed some days in Keswick, making excursions into the hills round Derwentwater. There are in all eight views in the neighbourhood of Derwentwater in this book, here (drawn with the page turned horizontally) and on the rectos of folios 26, 28, 29, 36, 37, 38 and 44 (D01079, D01087, D01084, D01026, D01027, D01028, D01033; Turner Bequest XXXV 77, 85, 82, 24, 25, 26, 31), as well as views in Borrowdale, which is visible in the far distance of this drawing, at the southern end of the lake. Finberg recorded that the present leaf suffered a ‘piece torn out’ in the course of the Tate Gallery flood of January 1928.1

As Turner scholar David Hill notes, the viewpoint is Calfclose Bay; the distant hills are those of Borrowdale. A slightly different view, with added colour, is on folio 29 recto (D01084; Turner Bequest XXXV 82); the two studies seem to have been used in preparation for the watercolour that Turner made for Joseph Farington (1747–1821) in 1801, Head of Derwentwater with Lodore Falls (private collection),2 and the verso of D01084 is annotated with Farington’s name. There is an intermediate colour study (Tate D01102; Turner Bequest XXXVI H). The two studies were perhaps made use of again for the finished watercolour made in the mid-1830s for the England and Wales series (British Museum, London),3 engraved in 1837 as Keswick Lake, Cumberland (Tate impressions: T04608, T06124).

Technical notes:

The lower right corner has been badly torn and a missing piece made good (see above).

Verso:

Blank; slight smear of colour from drawing on folio 26 recto (D01079; Turner Bequest XXXV 77); stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed by A.J. Finberg in pencil ‘141.19’.