Catalogue entry
This is evidently based on a study made on the tour of 1794, though no drawing for this view is known. See however Tate
D00334,
D00335 and
D00336 (Turner Bequest XXI H 1 and 2, XXI I) for studies made at Valle Crucis and showing Dinas Brân. This exceptionally ambitious watercolour, notable for the subtlety and density of its tone and for its bold composition, seems never to have been exhibited by Turner, unless he displayed it in his father’s shop. A technically similar work, the view of Llangollen from the East (Tate
D00861; Turner Bequest XXXII E) was mounted by Turner with a washline border, and was evidently intended for display; and see the
Old Woman in a Cottage Kitchen (Tate
D00729; Turner Bequest XXIX X), which has the remains of a grey mount and which was almost certainly shown at the Academy in 1795.
After Turner’s death the view of Valle Crucis was ignored until the late twentieth century; its dirty condition may have discouraged Ruskin and others from selecting it for the National Gallery displays or for the Loan Collections. The bold compositional device of dividing the sheet horizontally into areas of contrasting dark and light tonality was taken up again for the treatment of an urban subject in the view of the
Cathedral Church at Lincoln that Turner exhibited in 1795 (British Museum, London, 1878–12–28–48),
1 based on Tate
D00342 (Turner Bequest XXI O).
The sheet is badly rubbed and damaged.
Blank; laid down on tissue paper.
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