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 > River and Margate Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner River Scene off Gravesend c.1805-9

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘River Scene off Gravesend’ c.1805-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 66 Verso:
River Scene off Gravesend circa 1805–9
D06466
Turner Bequest XCIX 62a
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 115 x 190 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted. This is certainly Gravesend, with St George’s Church, and a variant of the subject on folio 67 verso (D06468; Turner Bequest XCIX 63a). A vertical pencil line cuts off the right quarter of the composition; if 67 verso is folded over so that its right edge meets this line, one sees that Turner is considering alternative treatments of the subject, which he painted in a picture that he offered to Sir John Leicester in 1810 (whereabouts unknown).1 Of the two, 67 verso is closest to the outline of the picture that Turner drew in his letter to Sir John, 12 December 1810.2

David Blayney Brown
March 2009

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.127 no.206 (pl.203).
2
John Gage ed., Collected Correspondence of J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 1980, p.44 reproduced.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘River Scene off Gravesend c.1805–9 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-river-scene-off-gravesend-r1130662, accessed 25 April 2024.