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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Stonehenge Sketchbook [pseudo-Finberg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Cheddar Gorge: High Rock from the West 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cheddar Gorge: High Rock from the West’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
Cheddar Gorge: High Rock from the West 1811
D41378
Turner Bequest CXXV b 5
Pencil on white wove paper, 222 x 181 mm
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘5’ top left, ascending vertically
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.B – 5’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s viewpoint appears to be the road through Cheddar Gorge at the point east of Lion Rock after the dog-leg bends near Gough’s Cave, looking towards High Rock, with the perfunctory hatching at the centre indicating the rock-face on the far side of the road as it passes behind the outcrop on the left. Folios 1 recto–8 recto (D41374–D41381) are all views of Cheddar Gorge, most apparently made in a concentrated area around the Horseshoe Bend.
As discussed in the introduction, the pages of this ‘sketchbook’, which appear to have originally been loose sheets, are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Rocks’ in a manuscript list,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Rocky gorge’.2 Figures corresponding to Finberg’s MS catalogue page numbers, which differ from Bell’s sequence, are inscribed on the verso of each sheet.
1
A.J. Finberg, MS addenda, [circa 1928–39], tipped into a copy of his A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, opposite p.357, as CXXV(b) 12.
2
C.F. Bell, MS addenda, [after 1928], tipped into a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.I, p.356C, as CXXVB 5.
Technical notes:
The sheet is wrinkled, possibly as a result of exposure to damp. There are glue stains at the corners, showing through from the verso.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscription by Edwin Fagg in pencil ‘215 | 12’ bottom left, descending vertically (partly trimmed). There are glue stains at the corners of the sheet, and some rubbing or offsetting.

Matthew Imms
May 2010

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Cheddar Gorge: High Rock from the West 1811 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-cheddar-gorge-high-rock-from-the-west-r1137527, accessed 26 April 2024.