Joseph Mallord William Turner

The sketch here is quite animated and there might be some doubt as to which way up it should be read. The drawing looks more settled with the outside edge to the right, that is inverted in relation to the main sequence of subjects in the sketchbook. It has not yet proved possible to positively identify the forms with Yordas, but the identification seems likely in view of the position of the sketch towards the end of Turner’s itinerary, and the fact that he made a number of identified sketches of the cave in the Yorkshire 2 sketchbook (for example Tate D11121; Turner Bequest CXLV 56), which accompanied him on the same tour. Yordas Cave is on the left (west) side of Kingsdale about three miles north of Ingleton, and the present writer has dated Turner’s sketches there to Saturday 10 August 1816.