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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > Windsor and Eton Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Lake and Temples at Stourhead c.1808

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Lake and Temples at Stourhead’ c.1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Verso:
The Lake and Temples at Stourhead circa 1808
D06111
Turner Bequest XCVII 39a
Pencil on white wove paper, 107 x 182 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With another facing it on folio 40 (D06112) this is one of two variants of a classicising landscape composition with a stretch of water, temple and hilly background. It is not based on Thames scenery but, as recognised by Ian Warrell, on the lake and temples at Stourhead, Wiltshire. Folio 40 gives the present composition as if in reverse. The sketches look more like recollections of Stourhead, which Turner first visited in 1795, than views made on the spot and may date from summer 1808 when Turner is likely to have renewed contact with Hoare during visits to North Wales and Tabley in Cheshire.1

David Blayney Brown
September 2008

1
See Tabley Sketchbooks and Tour to Cheshire, North Wales, Lancashire and Yorkshire 1808.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Lake and Temples at Stourhead c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2008, 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-the-lake-and-temples-at-stourhead-r1130292, accessed 23 April 2024.