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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Tour of Yorkshire 1816 > Yorkshire 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Bolton Castle from Low Bolton, with Figures Washing Wool 1816

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bolton Castle from Low Bolton, with Figures Washing Wool’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 127 Recto:
Bolton Castle from Low Bolton, with Figures Washing Wool 1816
D11254
Turner Bequest CXLV 127
Pencil on white wove paper, 96 x 154 mm
Partial watermark ‘I & E | 1’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Green’ bottom left, and ‘Washing wool’ and ‘corn’ left of centre
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘127’ top left and ‘5’ top right, both ascending vertically
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest number ‘CXLV 127’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view was drawn with the page turned horizontally. The present author has dated this sketch to Monday 29 July 1816.1 Bolton Castle is at the village of Castle Bolton on the north flank of Wensleydale about four kilometres north-east of Aysgarth. The castle was built in the twenty years up to 1399 by Sir Richard Le Scrope, Lord Chancellor of England, and is famous for being the site of imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots in 1569. It has descended through the Lords Bolton ever since, and is today opened to the public.
1
See Hill 1984, pp.58–62.
Verso:
Blank

David Hill
April 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Bolton Castle from Low Bolton, with Figures Washing Wool 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-bolton-castle-from-low-bolton-with-figures-washing-wool-r1201840, accessed 22 May 2025.