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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Jedburgh 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Jedburgh’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 62 Recto:
Jedburgh 1831
D26036
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 64
Pencil on off-white wove writing paper, 113 x 185 mm
Inscribed in blue ink by John Ruskin ‘64’ bottom left inverted and ‘271’ top left inverted
Stamped in black ‘CCLXVII – 64’ top left inverted
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Bell Tower Bewk’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Taken from the south and made with the sketchbook inverted, this view of Jedburgh Abbey is quite similar to the sketch on folio 63 verso (D26039; CCLXVII 65a) that formed the basis of Turner’s watercolour Jedburgh Abbey circa 1832 (Taft Museum of Art, Cincinnati).1 This sketch, however, was made from a little to the east and shows the Old Bridge spanning the Jed Water to the right of the abbey.
Turner’s sketch is economical, but while he has left most of the side of the abbey blank, he has drawn two each of the arches of the arcade, triforium and clerestory. At the top of the drawing is a distant tower labelled ‘Bell Tower Bewk’. This is presumably the cylindrical bell tower of Jedburgh Castle Jail, which lies to the south west of the abbey. Although another explanation, that this is a separate sketch of Berwick’s Bell Tower, may fit the inscription better (see Tate D25693; Turner Bequest CCLXV 29).

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
Wilton 1979, p.427 no.1072.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Jedburgh 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-jedburgh-r1134404, accessed 24 April 2024.