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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Auckland Castle and the Deer Shelter, Bishop Auckland 1817

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 26 Recto:
Auckland Castle and the Deer Shelter, Bishop Auckland 1817
D12352
Turner Bequest CLVII 26
Pencil on white wove paper, 116 x 185 mm
Part watermark ‘atman | 14’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘15’, ‘7 +’ and ‘6’ along wall towards centre right, and ‘wall’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘26’ bottom right (now faint)
Stamped in black ‘CLVII – 26’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Auckland Castle’s Gothic deer shelter stands in the foreground, with the east end of the castle’s chapel dominating the skyline to the south-west. The slope up to the castle is now heavily wooded. In the distance to the left of the shelter is Newton Cap Bridge across the River Wear, later masked from this direction by Newton Cap Viaduct just downstream. This is one in a sequence of views between folios 21 verso and 27 recto (D12345–D12354), following the course of the River Gaunless from south to north anti-clockwise around the castle towards the River Wear.
The numbers inscribed on the shelter indicate its articulation. There are fifteen open arches along the near side, surmounted by seven incised Greek cross motifs, and six arches on this side of the central opening on the receding side. For the histories of the castle and deer shelter respectively, see the entries for folio 22 recto and 24 recto (D12346, D12349).
Owing to a typographical error, this page is cited in Finberg’s Inventory of the Turner Bequest as ‘25’ when it should be ‘26’, the number stamped on it. The Inventory gives the correct numbers for adjacent drawings, i.e. ‘25’ and ‘26a’ for folio 25 recto and the verso of the present leaf respectively (D12351, D12353).

Matthew Imms
February 2010

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Auckland Castle and the Deer Shelter, Bishop Auckland 1817 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-auckland-castle-and-the-deer-shelter-bishop-auckland-r1139353, accessed 19 September 2024.