Joseph Mallord William Turner

Looking along a River between High Wooded Banks, with a Large Castle just Visible in the Distance: ?Goodrich Castle on the River Wye

1798

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
Cyfarthfa Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 270 × 457 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D01671
Turner Bequest XLI 38

Technique and condition

This watercolour on cream wove Whatman paper displays severe light damage. In the past the image was covered by a window mount which obscured significant strips on both sides. This damage is irreversible and has permanently altered the colour of the paper, and destroyed some detail in the image. At the sides it is possible to see that mixed greens were used by Turner. The blue at the sides resembles indigo, one of the less lightfast of the typical watercolour pigments, and it was mixed with yellow ochre and a greener earth colour, which alone survive in the image.

Helen Evans
December 2008

Revised by Joyce Townsend
February 2011

Catalogue entry

The subject may be Goodrich Castle above the River Wye; see under D01648 (Turner Bequest XLI 18a) for other possible views in this sketchbook.
Technical notes:
The sheet is badly faded from exposure. The bottom right corner has been torn away.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in a later hand in pencil ‘No 15’ (compare D01632; XLI 4).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

Read full Catalogue entry

Explore

You might like

Left Right