Joseph Mallord William Turner

The subject was drawn with the page turned horizontally. Turner scholar David Hill describes the viewpoint as ‘taken near the hotel, looking north over the church to the lake’ – that is, Ullswater, which Turner had recorded in a sequence of studies made along the western shore; see the rectos of folios 51–57 (D01039–D01045; Turner Bequest XXXV 37–43). The only watercolour known to have been based on this drawing (private collection)1 is that commissioned by Joseph Mawman to be engraved by James Heath for Mawman’s Excursion to the Highlands of Scotland and the English Lakes, 1805 (Tate impression: T05953). The inscription on the back of the leaf suggests that Turner had another potential customer for the view, a Mr Mason, but nothing is known of this commission.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘M^r Mason’; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed by A.J. Finberg in pencil ‘141.44’.