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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Drinkers at a Harvest Home c.1805-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Verso:
?Drinkers at a Harvest Home circa 1805–7
D05805
Turner Bequest XCIII 24a
Pen and ink on white wove paper, prepared with a grey wash, 171 x 262 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See Introduction to the sketchbook and notes to the recto (D05802) and folio 22 verso (D05801) for its various studies of (mainly rustic) figures, their character and meaning; and especially folio 23 verso (D05803) for the subject, seen by Hill as a development of one sketched on folio 25 verso (D05807) if Turner was working backwards through the sketchbook. Like 23 verso, the drawing has attracted opposing interpretations, Finberg favouring a drinking scene and Hill one of rural misery or ‘some kind of peasant revolt’. The possible subject of a harvest home at Cassiobury Park is mentioned in the catalogue note to 23 verso.

David Blayney Brown
October 2007

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘?Drinkers at a Harvest Home c.1805–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2007, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-drinkers-at-a-harvest-home-r1130027, accessed 29 March 2024.