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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Cheshire, Derbyshire, North Wales ... > Tabley No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Valle Crucis Abbey 1808

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Valle Crucis Abbey’ 1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Valle Crucis Abbey 1808
D06842
Turner Bequest CIII 13
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 226 x 295 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Corn’ centre and ‘Road’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘13’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CIII 13’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As with folio 22 in the sketchbook (D06843; Turner Bequest CIII 14), Finberg’s tentative suggestion of Valley Crucis is correct, and demonstrably so in the present case on comparison with Turner’s watercolour Valle Crucis Abbey, Denbighshire of circa 1825 (Manchester Art Gallery),1 made for Picturesque Views in England and Wales. The composition is exactly the same and despite the long time-lag between drawing and watercolour, must be the origin of the design as recognised by Eric Shanes. Previously, only a sketch in the earlier (1798) Hereford Court sketchbook (Tate D01309; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 55) had been cited as a precursor.2
Shanes notes Turner’s inscriptions specifying features of the landscape including corn in the field, confirming the artist’s visit in summer, during his trip into North Wales in 1808 (see Introduction). Christiana Payne has drawn attention to Turner’s depiction, in the England and Wales watercolour, of an open, unfenced field with gleaners and his association of pre-Enclosure agriculture with the feudal past.3
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.393 no.799.
2
Ibid.
3
Christiana Payne, ‘Boundless Harvests: Representations of Open Fields and Gleaning in Early Nineteenth Century England’, Turner Studies, vol.11, no.1, Summer 1991, p.10.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
May 2010

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Valle Crucis Abbey 1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2010, 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-valle-crucis-abbey-r1134488, accessed 10 May 2026.