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 Stonehenge from the West, with the Heel Stone Beyond 1811

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Stonehenge from the West, with the Heel Stone Beyond’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
Stonehenge from the West, with the Heel Stone Beyond 1811
D41382
Turner Bequest CXXV b 9
Pencil on white wove paper, 180 x 222 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘G’ and ‘[?W’] at centre of sky
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in pencil ‘9’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CXXV.B – 9’ bottom left, descending
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view of the circle is from a little south of due west, with the Heel Stone (about sixty metres to the north-east of the main group) shown to the left and Salisbury Plain towards Durrington beyond. This is the first of a sequence concluding on folio 15 recto (D41388), showing Stonehenge; for Turner’s other views of the monument, see the introduction to the ‘sketchbook’.
As discussed there, the pages appear to have originally been loose sheets, and are not recorded in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory of the Bequest, although he subsequently noted the subject as ‘Stonehenge’ in a manuscript list,1 while C.F. Bell described it in his own notes as ‘Stonehenge, distant view’.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) 4.
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 9.
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 ‘207 | 4’ bottom right (partly trimmed). There are glue stains and some abrasion the corners of the sheet. A straight-edged strip of about 16 mm along the bottom edge (broadening at each end) has darkened, apparently from exposure to light or dust. There is a similar effect on the blank verso of folio 8 (the recto being D41381).

Matthew Imms
May 2010

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Stonehenge from the West, with the Heel Stone Beyond 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-stonehenge-from-the-west-with-the-heel-stone-beyond-r1137531, accessed 25 April 2024.