Joseph Mallord William Turner

?Study for a Picture with Figures and Architecture

c.1799–1805

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Calais Pier Sketchbook
Medium
Chalk on paper
Dimensions
Support: 271 x 436 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D04930
Turner Bequest LXXXI 29

Catalogue entry

This very rough study, made on the left with the page turned horizontally, is difficult to decipher; the group is perhaps related to that on folio 14 recto (D04928; Turner Bequest LXXXI 27), and the page as a whole connected with the painting The Destruction of Sodom, possibly exhibited at Turner’s gallery in 1805 (Tate N00474).1
There is a possibly related study on folio 3 recto (D04906; Turner Bequest LXXXI 5) and another, even slighter, sketch of what appears to be the same subject on folio 15 verso (D04931; Turner Bequest LXXXI 30).
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.44 no.56, pl.66.
Technical notes:
At some stage the leaf was detached and folded in half, and the right side bears an offset from the left with the composition in reverse.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

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