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 ?Near St Catherine's Lock, Guildford 1807

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Near St Catherine's Lock, Guildford’ 1807
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 54 Recto:
?Near St Catherine’s Lock, Guildford 1807
D06575
Turner Bequest C 49
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 118 x 187 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘49’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘C 49’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
One of two versions in this sketchbook of the same view of a weir or lock on a river, perhaps near St Catherine’s Lock on the Wey near Guildford. The other on folio 55 (D06577; Turner bequest C 50) is more developed, with figures and cattle. A further sketch, near St Catherine’s ferry, is on folio 80 verso (D06617; Turner Bequest C 75a). The present sketch and folio 55 appear to be connected with an unfinished oil Weir and Cattle (Tate N02705), which is roughly contemporary and for which a location on the Wey near Guildford has already been suggested by Christopher Pinsent.1 The oil is one of a group traditionally thought to have been painted out of doors from nature. The sketches suggest otherwise, unless they were made independently.

David Blayney Brown
May 2006

1
Christopher Pinsent, letter, 2 March 1970, quoted in Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.118 no.167 (pl.167).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘?Near St Catherine’s Lock, Guildford 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-near-st-catherines-lock-guildford-r1139109, accessed 24 April 2024.