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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Vignette watercolours c.1826-1843 > Watercolours Related to The Poetical ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Vignette Study; Sea and Sun circa 1826-36

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Vignette Study; Sea and Sun’ circa 1826-36
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Vignette Study; Sea and Sun circa 1826–36
D27606
Turner Bequest CCLXXX 89
Pencil and watercolour, approximately 150 x 115 mm on white wove paper, 236 x 187 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘(89’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 89’ bottom left, descending left-hand edge
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
A.J. Finberg reasonably identified the study as a preliminary design for Tornaro (see Tate D27689; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 172), a vignette which Turner produced for Rogers’s Poems (1834).1 The general composition and palette of the two works are closely related. More recently, however, Jan Piggott has linked the study to the vignette Gertrude of Wyoming – The Valley (National Gallery of Scotland),2 an illustration for Thomas Campbell’s Poetical Works (1837).3
1
Finberg 1909, vol.II, p.895.
2
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, no.1283; reproduced in colour in Mungo Campbell, A Complete Catalogue of Works by Turner in the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh 1993, p.61.
3
Piggott 1993, p.96.
Verso:
Inscribed by unknown hands in blue pencil ‘220’ centre, vertically aligned, and ‘D27606’ bottom left

Meredith Gamer
August 2006

How to cite

Meredith Gamer, ‘Vignette Study; Sea and Sun c.1826–36 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2006, 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-vignette-study-sea-and-sun-r1133432, accessed 16 April 2024.