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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > North Wales Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Rocky Stream with a Waterfall 1798

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Rocky Stream with a Waterfall’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 47 Recto:
A Rocky Stream with a Waterfall 1798
D01457
Turner Bequest XXXIX 93
Pencil and watercolour on buff laid wrapping paper, 266 x 170 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXXIX 93’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg suggested that this subject shows Cynfael Falls;1 unlike the identification of the fall shown on folio 9 recto (D01364), he did not enter a subsequent doubt.2 He proposed that the two falls drawn here and on folio 46 recto (D01456; Turner Bequest XXXIX 92) are the same, but they seem to have very different characters. Compare the fall shown on folio 96 recto (D01460).
In 1909, at this point Finberg recorded ‘2 leaves torn out. Cf. pp. 92 and 93’;3 as he suggested, they have been replaced with D01456 and the present leaf. A third was also bound in, as folio 48 (D01453; Turner Bequest XXXIX 89).
1
See Finberg 1909, I, p.91.
2
See A.J. Finberg, undated MS note to XXXIX 9 in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.90.
3
Ibid.
Verso:
Blank, save for a blue-grey smear of paint along the inside edge; this may indicate that D01456 should follow rather than precede this leaf.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Rocky Stream with a Waterfall 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, 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-rocky-stream-with-a-waterfall-r1173632, accessed 26 April 2024.