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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Mary's Church, Monken Hadley, Middlesex ?1796

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Mary's Church, Monken Hadley, Middlesex’ ?1796
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
St Mary’s Church, Monken Hadley, Middlesex ?1796
D36522
Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 1
Pencil and grey and grey-blue wash on white wove paper, 252 x 211 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXV – 1’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Provenance:
Probably commissioned by Dr Thomas Monro
Monro’s posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 26 June 1833 (possibly 100)
Bought by or on behalf of Turner
This is presumably copied from a print or drawing by another artist. The pencil work is probably by Girtin, but is possibly by a different hand. Finberg’s entry implies that the sheet was inscribed ‘Hadley’ but the inscription is not extant.
The house seen behind the church in this view had belonged to Dr Monro’s elder brother John, who moved there in 1791 after retiring from his position at Bethlehem Hospital; he died there later in the same year, and when Turner drew the place the house was lived in by another Monro brother, James. Turner made another watercolour of the church (private collection),1 which is dated 1793 on a tombstone, and constitutes the earliest evidence of a connection between the artist and the doctor.
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.305 no.40, reproduced.
Technical notes:
The sheet is slightly discoloured from prolonged exposure.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘St Mary’s Church, Monken Hadley, Middlesex ?1796 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-st-marys-church-monken-hadley-middlesex-r1141247, accessed 25 April 2024.