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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Hastings Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Somer Hill 1810

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Somer Hill’ 1810
Folio 84 Verso:
Somer Hill 1810
D07725
Turner Bequest CXI 84a
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 110 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted, and continued on folio 85 (D07726).
Turner visited Somer Hill, a mile and a half outside Tonbridge, Kent, in 1810, en route to Sussex to make views for John Fuller following his commission that year. He made a sketch in his Harvest Home sketchbook (Tate D05375; Turner Bequest LXXXVI 19) and the double-spread view here, looking roughly eastwards across the lake and through trees towards the house. Then he made a larger and more finished drawing, perhaps also on-site, in the Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate D10210–D10211; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 3a–4), which he used as the basis for his painting Somer-Hill, the Seat of W.F. Woodgate, Esq. (National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh).1 See especially notes to the larger drawing for the subject and background.

David Blayney Brown
May 2011

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, the Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.82–3 no.116 (pl.95).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Somer Hill 1810’, catalogue entry, May 2011, 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/somer-hill-r1131212, accessed 19 September 2024.