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 Gordale Scar 1816

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Gordale Scar’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 163 Recto:
Gordale Scar 1816
D11323
Turner Bequest CXLV 162
Pencil on white wove paper, 154 x 96 mm
Partial watermark ‘I & E | 1’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘162’ bottom left, upside down
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest number ‘CXLV 162’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is the left half of a double-page spread, continued on folio 162 verso opposite (D11322; Turner Bequest CXLV 161a). The two pages, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, form the fifth of seven studies of Gordale Scar and its approaches including one in the Yorkshire 5 sketchbook (Tate D11574; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 30a), which also accompanied Turner on his tour of 1816. The present author has dated this sketch to Thursday 25 July,1 and compares it to a large coloured sketch (Tate D12113; Turner Bequest CLIV O).2 The point of visual intersection of the right side of the gorge with the left is similar, and argues a similar point of view.
For general notes on Gordale, see under folio 170 recto (D11335; Turner Bequest CXLV 169).
1
See Hill 1984, pp.42–6.
2
See ibid., p.29.
Verso:
Blank

David Hill
April 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Gordale Scar 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-gordale-scar-r1201910, accessed 28 May 2025.