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

Drawn with the sketchbook inverted and continued on folios 39 verso and 41 (D10404, D10407) this forms a panorama of Wharfedale from the Chevin, drawn in more detail to that on folios 38 verso–39 (D10402–D10403). Rather than from Caley Park, which runs eastwards from Otley Chevin, the sketch is taken from the mid-slopes of the Great Dib south and very slightly west of Otley Church. Revising Finberg’s title, Hill, Warburton and Tussey describe the terrain, with Otley town and bridge below (compare the vignette of these on D10403), the Washburn Valley and Norwood Edge above it to the left, Farnley Hall in the distance and Almscliffe Crag on the right with Leathley church below it. Turner repeated the vista exactly, on a larger format, in the Large Farnley sketchbook (Tate D09056; Turner Bequest CXXVIII 40), discussed in this catalogue by David Hill. While the repetition is ‘perhaps curious’, as Hill observes, the larger drawing allows Turner to assemble yet more detail in what may be the ‘culmination of [his] exploration of the site’. Via a colour beginning of the composition (Tate D17177; Turner Bequest CXCVI M) Turner turned the panorama into a watercolour for Walter Fawkes, circa 1816–18 (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).1

See Introduction and notes to folio 1 (D10343), for Turner’s visits to Fawkes and his views of Wharfedale in this sketchbook.