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 4 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner From Heysham, Looking across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District Mountains 1816

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘From Heysham, Looking across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District Mountains’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Recto:
From Heysham, Looking across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District Mountains 1816
D11510
Turner Bequest CXLVII 41
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 206 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Old Man’, ‘Holker’, ‘Floo’, Castle H’, ‘Arnside’, ‘Corn’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘279’ bottom right and ‘41’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CXLVII 41’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is the right half of a double-page spread continued from folio 40 verso (D11509), recording the panorama of Morecambe Bay from above Heysham village, with Heysham Head and St Patrick’s Chapel to the left, and the Lake District mountains in the distance with (left to right on this page), the Coniston ‘Old Man’ group, ‘Holker’ Hall, ‘Floo[kburgh]’ and Castle H[ead]’. The inscription of Flookburgh appears to be misplaced. The village of Flookburgh lies on the same line of sight as Holker Hall. Turner is probably referring to Kents Bank, east of Flookburgh, where the crossing over the sands to Lancaster began. The hills in the right distance to the right of ‘Floo[kburgh]’ are the Fairfield group, Kirkstone Fell and in the distance to the right of Castle Head, the High Street group. The sketch formed the basis of a studio watercolour Heysham and Cumberland Mountains (British Museum, London)1 dated 1818 and engraved in 1822 for Thomas Dunham Whitaker’s History of Richmondshire, part of the projected seven-volume General History of the County of York (see Introduction to the sketchbook).
Above, to the right, Turner has continued the panorama to include ‘Arnside’ Knott.

David Hill
February 2009

1
Wilton 1979, p.366 no.579. Hill, Warburton and Tussey 1980 point out that the identification of the distant mountains as in Cumberland, as in the title of the watercolour, is an error. The mountains were in the old county of Lancashire. In 1974 the whole of the Lake District was taken into the new county of Cumbria.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘From Heysham, Looking across Morecambe Bay to the Lake District Mountains 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-from-heysham-looking-across-morecambe-bay-to-the-lake-r1143645, accessed 23 April 2024.