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

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this slight sketch shows the interior of Kenilworth Castle’s Great Hall, with the archway leading to the Saintlowe Tower on the main floor level beside a deeply recessed window, with the blank arcade of the once-vaulted cellars below. Turner’s inscription ‘wall’ may be a reminder that the sky beyond the window is obscured from this angle by the tower beyond. There is a wider view of this side of the hall on the recto (D22040).

On the left is a slight continuation from the view of the Great Tower on folio 36 recto opposite (D22042). Most of the sketches between folios 27 recto (D22024) and 37 verso (D22045) show Kenilworth. For the history of the castle and Turner’s subsequent watercolour, which Eric Shanes has described as a ‘synthesis’ of sketches between folios 28 verso (D22027) and 37 verso,1 see under folio 29 recto (D22028).