Joseph Mallord William Turner

Wells: The Bishop’s Eye Gateway

1795

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Smaller South Wales Sketchbook
Medium
Dimensions: Support: 205 x 130 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D00466
Turner Bequest XXV 5

Catalogue entry

The gate was built by Bishop Bekynton as an entrance to the Bishop’s Palace from the Market Place, an amenity that Bekynton gave to the people of Wells in 1451. Another view of the same gate, seen from farther away across the Market Place, is in the South Wales sketchbook (Tate D00553; Turner Bequest XXVI 1).

Technical notes:

Part of John Ruskin’s inscription on his wrapper for the sketchbook, recorded by Finberg, read ‘5 leaves taken out which were burnt at the edge’;1 this refers to folios 1 recto–4 recto (D00462–D00465) and the present leaf.

The bottom right corner (or top right corner relative to the sketchbook’s foliation) has been lost and made up.

1

Finberg 1909, I, p.43; see also p.44.

Verso:

Inscribed, probably not by Turner, in pencil ‘Wells’; and in a later hand in pencil ‘19 | 14 439’; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

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