Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Ruins of Whalley Abbey

1799

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Lancashire and North Wales Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 225 × 329 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D01989
Turner Bequest XLV 49

Catalogue entry

This is a view of Whalley Abbey ruins taken from closer to the main gateway than that on folio 34 verso (D01967). Unlike that drawing, this, although perhaps the handsomest of all the compositions featuring the Abbey, was not used as the basis for a finished design.
Finberg’s Inventory duplicates this drawing as page ‘51. A castle’,1 to which the additional Tate accession number D01991 was initially assigned.
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.113.
Technical notes:
The leaf is discoloured from exposure; it is formed of coarser paper than the bulk of the sketchbook; see also folios 32 and 36 (D01962–D01963), and 42 (D01981; Turner Bequest XLV 41b).
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by a later hand in pencil ‘No 30’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

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