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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Rokeby and Appleby Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Sketch of a Castle; and St John's-in-the-Vale 1831

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  • Inside front cover of sketchbook
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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Sketch of a Castle; and St John's-in-the-Vale’ 1831 (Inside front cover of sketchbook)
Inside front cover of sketchbook
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Inside Front Cover:
A Sketch of a Castle; and St John’s-in-the-Vale 1831
D41065
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 94 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Lisle | 19 Lines’ left running vertically and ‘St John’ right running vertically
Executors’ endorsement: Inscribed in pencil by Charles Lock Eastlake, ‘Book containing 61 leaves | drawn upon – some | on both sides – | C.L.E. | no. 403’ top; Inscribed in pencil by John Prescott [sp?] Knight ‘JPK’ beneath Eastlakes’s endorsement.
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXIV’ top left and inscribed by A. J. Finberg ‘CCLXIV’ bottom centre.
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are two sketches on the inside front cover of this sketchbook, both drawn with the book turned to the right. At the top is a sketch of part of a castle with the inscription ‘19 lines’, indicating some architectural features. The castle has not been identified. At the bottom of the page is a sketch inscribed ‘St John’. This presumably depicts St Johns-in-the-Vale, a valley that runs between Clough Head in the east and High Rigg and Low Rigg in the west, in the northern Lake District. There is another sketch of the valley on folio 29 verso (D25580).
Other inscriptions on the page were made by the executors of the Turner Bequest and Finberg who first catalogued the sketchbook.

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘A Sketch of a Castle; and St John’s-in-the-Vale 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-a-sketch-of-a-castle-and-st-johns-in-the-vale-r1133882, accessed 25 April 2024.