J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > Thames Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Cloudy Sky c.1825

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Cloudy Sky’ c.1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 19 Recto:
A Cloudy Sky c.1825
D18622
Turner Bequest CCXII 19
Watercolour on white wove paper, 114 x 188 mm
Part watermark ‘lee | 19’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘19’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXII – 19’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of a sequence of twenty-five recto pages of watercolour landscape, sea and sky compositions between folio 9 recto (D18609) and folio 34 recto (D18638), many of which evoke quiet Thames Valley scenes with water in the foreground; for a checklist and general comments, see the sketchbook’s Introduction. Here the image is limited to the sky, with the slightest of washes, delicately manipulated. Compare the sky in the ‘Little Liber’ design Ship in a Storm of about this time (Tate D25432; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 309a).

Matthew Imms
December 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Cloudy Sky c.1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-cloudy-sky-r1172739, accessed 24 April 2024.