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 The Ante Room, Abbotsford 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Ante Room, Abbotsford’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 65 Verso:
The Ante Room, Abbotsford 1831
D26043
Turner Bequest CCLXVII 67a
Pencil on off-white wove writing paper, 113 x 185 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook inverted on folios 65 verso–66 (D26043, D26044; CCLXVII 67a, 66) are sketches of the interior of Abbotsford. At the left is a display of weaponry and armour above the fireplace in the ante room connected to the armoury. This consists of a helmet and breastplate, with a pair of antlers above it and a shield beneath. Either side are various swords, daggers and dirks, with further smaller paraphernalia either side of the fireplace. At the right of the page is a view of another room in Abbotsford, perhaps the Drawing Room where Scott displayed eight of Turner’s watercolours prepared for the Provincial Antiquities publication.1
There are two further views of the armoury on folio 66. For references to other sketches of Abbotsford, see folio 62 verso (D26037; CCLXVII 64a).

Thomas Ardill
September 2009

1
There is a photograph of the room in Katrina Thomson, Turner and Sir Walter Scott: The Provincial Antiquities and Picturesque Scenery of Scotland, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh 1999, p.[40] reproduced fig.18; the drawing room is described in Major-General Sir Walter Maxwell Scott, Guide to Abbotsford, new edition, revised by Dr. James Corson, London [circa 1975], p.11.

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘The Ante Room, Abbotsford 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-the-ante-room-abbotsford-r1134411, accessed 23 April 2024.