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 > Somerset and North Devon Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Valley of the West Lyn River near Lynton 1811

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Valley of the West Lyn River near Lynton’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?The Valley of the West Lyn River near Lynton 1811
D08961
Turner Bequest CXXVI 15
Pencil on white wove paper, 200 x 324 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘sh[...]’ top left and ‘[L...]’ bottom left
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXVI 15’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is unconfirmed, but is probably the valley of the River West Lyn, looking inland to the south along the Barbrook road south of Lynton and Lynmouth, from about the viewpoint of the sketches of these villages in the opposite direction on D08962 and D08963 (CXXVI 16, 17). There appear to be pack animals in the foreground. The valley is now heavily wooded, but Thomas Hewitt Williams’s 1802 etching Lynton Church, from Lynmouth (Westcountry Studies Library, Exeter), shows the steep, rocky valley from further back and can be compared with Turner’s sketch.
For other views of Lynton and Lynmouth see under D08948 (CXXVI 3).
Technical notes:
There are five sets of stitch holes near the left-hand edge.
Verso:
Blank. There is some brown staining.

Matthew Imms
January 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?The Valley of the West Lyn River near Lynton 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2011, 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-valley-of-the-west-lyn-river-near-lynton-r1137558, accessed 19 April 2024.