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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > East Anglia, Sussex and Yorkshire 1824 > Brighton and Arundel Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Views of Kirkstall Abbey and the River Aire c.1824

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views of Kirkstall Abbey and the River Aire’ c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 56 Recto:
Views of Kirkstall Abbey and the River Aire
D18393
Turner Bequest CCX 50
Pencil on white wove paper, 75 x 118 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Road’, ‘Children at play’ centre near rear
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘50’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCX–50’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With fluid handling, here Turner depicts the valley of the River Aire and Kirkstall Abbey, a ruined Cistercian monastery established in 1152. It is shown from the road to the north. At bottom right is a distant prospect of Kirkstall Abbey from the northwest and at bottom left, a separate detail of the Abbey gatehouse. The artist notes that there are ‘Children at play’ in the grounds of the monastery. This sketch is associated with Turner’s watercolour of Kirkstall Abbey produced for W.B. Cooke’s Rivers of England series (Tate D18146; Turner Bequest CCVIII M and Tate impressions T04810, T04811, T06371).1 See also Tate D18390; Turner Bequest CCX 48.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2015

1
For more information see Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Kirkstall Abbey, on the River Aire 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-kirkstall-abbey-on-the-river-aire-r1146210.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Views of Kirkstall Abbey and the River Aire by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-views-of-kirkstall-abbey-and-the-river-aire-r1181280, accessed 26 April 2024.