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

This is a group of three graphite pencil sketches on light-medium weight, grey wove paper depicts three small landscape studies on the right-hand side of the support. Each of the images differs slightly. The central image is reasonably detailed and is quite clear and sharp in line formation. The other two images appear to be a little more hurried. The pencil here may have been blunter than that used on the other image, and its use may have been lighter. The subtle difference between these two images is that the lower image is slightly looser in character.

There is some light creasing in the upper left corner and a small but old, and now repaired, crease in the lower right corner. This work is in good condition.

This is one of a large group of separate studies, most of which were made in gouache on blue paper, associated with a visit to Petworth House in West Sussex, the home of the third Earl of Egremont. For more information, see the Introduction to this section.

The present sheet has been associated with Turner’s 1827 Petworth visit since 1989;1 it had previously been catalogued as ‘Sketches of English meadows, trees, & c.’ by the Turner Bequest’s first cataloguer, A.J. Finberg.2 The study is now, like D33935 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 225), thought to have been removed from the Petworth sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXLIII).3 This appears extremely likely considering that the sketchbook contains all of the other sketches from the 1827 Petworth visit that can be connected to the paintings for the Carved Room scheme with certainty. The book as now constituted is also catalogued within the present Petworth section: see the entries for Tate D22655–D22658 Turner Bequest (CCXLIII 76a–78). For more information about the oil paintings, see the Introduction to this subsection.

The top sketch on this sheet shows part of the landscape seen on the right of the finished picture The Lake, Petworth: Sunset, Fighting Bucks (Tate T03883; in situ at Petworth House). The middle study, meanwhile, relates to the hills seen in The Lake, Petworth: Sunset, a Stag Drinking (Tate T03884; in situ at Petworth House), while the lower study relates to the curving path seen on the left of the less finished painting, Petworth Park: Tillington Church in the Distance (Tate N00559).4

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