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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner Bolton Abbey through Trees from the South 1816

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bolton Abbey through Trees from the South’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Recto:
Bolton Abbey through Trees from the South 1816
D09886
Turner Bequest CXXXIV 81v
Pencil on white wove paper with gilt edges, 179 x 254 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This slight sketch shows the east end of Bolton’s ruined church, looking north through trees. It is not recorded in Finberg’s Inventory of the Turner Bequest,1 and was probably still stuck down in his time as the verso of part of an exhibited double-page drawing of Bolton Abbey (D09885, D09887; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 81–82). It has been given the pseudo-Finberg number ‘81v’ (‘v’ usually indicating the verso of the sheet in such cases), although it is bound as the recto. For other views of the abbey see under folio 7 recto (D09874; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 73).
1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.383.
Technical notes:
The drawing is disfigured by swathes of dark spotting as a result of having been stuck down. The right-hand half (127 mm) of the original sheet is missing, with the corners further trimmed diagonally, and has been made good with slightly darker paper. It is likely that the composition on this side has been cropped in the process.

Matthew Imms
July 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Bolton Abbey through Trees from the South 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-bolton-abbey-through-trees-from-the-south-r1147360, accessed 14 July 2025.