Joseph Mallord William Turner

Fountains Abbey: The Lay Brothers’ Dormitory and Refectory with the River Skell

1797

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
North of England Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 210 × 270 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D01000
Turner Bequest XXXIV 89

Catalogue entry

The subject is drawn with the page turned horizontally. This leaf was one of those removed for exhibition by John Ruskin. It probably belongs in the place where a drawing of Dryburgh Abbey has been bound out of sequence as folio 24 recto (D00929; Turner Bequest XXXIV 23). Turner made other drawings of Fountains Abbey in the contemporary Tweed and Lakes sketchbook (Tate D01010, D01082, D01083; Turner Bequest XXXV 7, 80, 81). A finished watercolour based on this drawing was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793 (435; York Art Gallery).1
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.326 no.238, reproduced).
Technical notes:
The page is discoloured from prolonged exposure.
Verso:
Inscribed (not in Turner’s hand) ‘Fountains Abbey’ and ‘58’; some paint smears; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
January 2013

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