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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devonshire Rivers, No.3, and Wharfedale ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Torridge Valley below Great Torrington; Farnley Hall from the East 1814-1816

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Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Verso:
The Torridge Valley below Great Torrington; Farnley Hall from the East 1814–1816
D09810
Turner Bequest CXXXIV 18a
Pencil on white wove paper with gilt edges, 179 x 254 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In a sketchbook which includes views of Devon made in 1814 with later Yorkshire subjects, this page is unique in combining the two counties. At the top left is a slight view of Great Torrington north-east across the Torridge Valley in Devon; this is a variation and continuation of the right-hand part of the sketch on the recto (D09809), under which the subject is discussed further. On the present page, as in other views, Turner shows small gazebo or belvedere at the far on the skyline still stands beside the bowling green on the site of the medieval castle off Castle Street.1
The trees to the right are continued from the main part of the view of Farnley Hall, Yorkshire, on folio 31 recto opposite (D09811; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 19).

Matthew Imms
July 2014

1
See Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, Devon, The Buildings of England, revised ed., New Haven and London 2002, p.463.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Torridge Valley below Great Torrington; Farnley Hall from the East 1814–1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-torridge-valley-below-great-torrington-farnley-hall-from-r1147387, accessed 05 April 2026.