Joseph Mallord William Turner

This is based on a drawing in the South Wales sketchbook (Tate D00592; Turner Bequest XXVI 38). It is probably the beginning of the drawing commissioned by Mr Laurie (see the list of ‘Order’d Drawings’ near the front of the South Wales book, Tate D40557). The sheet size is almost identical to that of Tate D00688 (Turner Bequest XXVIII C), which seems to have been begun in the same way, with a lay-in of grey colour, but in that instance Turner has added local colour, missing from this ébauche. It is noteworthy that he uses here the traditional eighteenth-century watercolour procedure of grey dead-colouring, which was to be superseded in his work (and that of his friend Thomas Girtin, (1775–1802) in the next year or two.

Verso:

Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; some stains; inscribed in a modern hand in pencil ‘23’.