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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Marine subjects c.1803-14 > Spithead Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hindhead Hill 1807

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hindhead Hill’ 1807
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Recto:
Hindhead Hill 1807
D06539
Turner Bequest C 20
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 118 x 187 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘20’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘C 20’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of a group of sketches of Hindhead or Gibbet Hill in this sketchbook, all very slight outlines which must have been made from Turner’s coach on his way to or from Portsmouth; see Introduction to the sketchbook for further comment, and Turner’s verses on ‘Hindhead. Tho[u] cloud-capt winded hill’ inside the back cover (D40615). Before being rerouted, for safety reasons, in 1826, the turnpike road to Portsmouth clung to the steep sides of the Devil’s Punch Bowl near Hindhead. Turner showed the scene in all its bleak splendour in his Liber Studiorum plate, Hind Head Hill, 1811, which was worked up from the sketches in this book; see especially folio 54 verso (D06576; Turner Bequest C 49a). For the gibbet, see folio 22 (D06540; Turner Bequest C 21).
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
May 2006

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Hindhead Hill 1807 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2006, 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-hindhead-hill-r1139061, accessed 25 April 2024.