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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Huntsmen, Horses and Hounds at Raby Castle 1817

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Huntsmen, Horses and Hounds at Raby Castle 1817
D12284
Turner Bequest CLVI 14a
Pencil on white wove paper, 232 x 328 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | 1816’
Inscribed in pencil ‘14 a’ top left, upside down
Inscribed in pencil ‘14a’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These are isolated studies of mounted huntsmen, dogs and horses’ legs for Turner’s watercolour of Raby Castle (currently untraced),1 engraved in 1820 for Surtees’s History of Durham, as discussed in the introduction to the tour and in the entry for folio 24 recto (D12282; Turner Bequest CLVI 13a), a rough study for the overall composition. The gesture and stance of the horse and rider at the bottom left are followed closely in the watercolour,2 but in reverse. As on folio 24 recto, the dogs are shown as a blur of lively, expressive strokes as they mill around the horses.
There are further studies on folio 28 recto (D12280; CLVI 12a), the entry for which also discusses a related sheet in a private collection; studies elsewhere are noted under folio 24 recto. As now bound and foliated, sketches of the castle and its surroundings fill most of the second half of the sketchbook, from folio 17 recto (D12298; CLVI 22a) to folio 32 recto (D12309; CLVI 28).

Matthew Imms
February 2010

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.364 no.558.
2
See Rudd 2006, pp.47, [67] note 34.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Huntsmen, Horses and Hounds at Raby Castle 1817 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2010, 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-huntsmen-horses-and-hounds-at-raby-castle-r1139498, accessed 28 March 2024.