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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Work for Earls Egremont and Lonsdale ... > Cockermouth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Whitehaven Castle 1809

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Whitehaven Castle’ 1809
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Recto:
Whitehaven Castle 1809
D07581
Turner Bequest CX 39
Pencil on white laid paper, 116 x 185 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘39’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CX 39’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Whitehaven Castle was the Lowther family’s residence in the town, which it surveys from higher ground on Flatt Walks, looking down Lowther Street. From it the Earl of Lonsdale controlled his family’s interests in Whitehaven port and the mines nearby. Originally known as Flatt Hall or The Flatts, the mansion was rebuilt by Robert Adam, with the addition of battlements, and renamed Whitehaven Castle in the 1760s. Later a hospital, it is now apartments. Turner shows the entrance front from the south-west, near the top of Lowther Street, and to right the garden front with its projecting semi-circular bay. He also adds a detail of one of the windows with its stone lintel. He does not show the once-beautiful gardens.

David Blayney Brown
August 2009

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Whitehaven Castle 1809 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2009, 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-whitehaven-castle-r1135697, accessed 25 April 2024.