Joseph Mallord William Turner

The castle is seen from the south, with the flagpole on Bulmer’s Tower at the right. The village of Staindrop is in the middle distance, about half a mile south of the castle, with the tower of St Mary’s Church on the right. The rising ground beyond the castle was the vantage point for panoramic studies looking back in this direction on folios 19 recto, 18 recto and 17 verso (D12278, D12296, D12297; CLVI 11a, 21a–22), and folios 21 recto and 20 verso (D12300, D12301; CLVI 23a–24), which were used for Turner’s 1818 painting Raby Castle, the Seat of the Earl of Darlington (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore).1

There is a rougher sketch from further south of Staindrop on folio 19 verso (D12277; CLVI 11). As now bound and foliated, sketches of the castle and its surroundings fill most of the second half of the sketchbook, from folio 17 recto (D12298; CLVI 22a) to folio 32 recto (D12309; CLVI 28).