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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Tour of Yorkshire 1816 > Yorkshire 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Wensleydale, Looking East from near Aysgarth 1816

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Wensleydale, Looking East from near Aysgarth’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 136 Recto:
Wensleydale, Looking East from near Aysgarth 1816
D11269
Turner Bequest CXLV 135
Pencil on white wove paper, 96 x 154 mm
Partial watermark ‘Smith | 812’
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘135’ top left, ascending vertically
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest number ‘CXLV 135’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Taken from a viewpoint above Aysgarth Middle Falls, this sketch, drawn with the page turned horizontally, records the view down Wensleydale. Turner sketched a similar view from and higher viewpoint on folio 135 verso opposite (D11371; Turner Bequest CXLV 187), and also from the top of the falls in the Yorkshire 4 sketchbook (Tate D11460; Turner Bequest CXLVII 12).
The panorama is effectively continued to the right in a following sketch, folio 134 verso (D11268), and the whole panorama is comprehended in another taken from above Aysgarth Church in the Yorkshire 4 sketchbook (Tate D11466; Turner Bequest CXLVII 16).
The building against the trees in the right distance is the Belvedere Temple. This two-storey octagonal structure, with a shallow domed lead roof, survives, fairly comprehensively hidden in trees, by the side of the main road to West Witton, opposite Temple Farm. It was built in 1792 by John Foss of Richmond for T.J. Anderson of nearby Swinithwaite Hall. It seems to have been built as an estate ornament, and principally to provide a platform from which to survey the prospect of Wensleydale all around. When built, admiration for such scenery would have constituted quite advanced taste. It is all the more remarkable that a gentleman should have gone to such lengths to encourage it.
The present author has dated this sketch to Sunday 28 July 1816.1

David Hill
April 2009

1
See Hill 1984, pp.52–8.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Wensleydale, Looking East from near Aysgarth 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-wensleydale-looking-east-from-near-aysgarth-r1201856, accessed 05 April 2026.