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

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Joseph Mallord William Turner A Watermill 1792-3

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Watermill’ 1792-3
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Watermill 1792–3
D00898
Turner Bequest XXXIII a
Oil on paper (trimmed to oval), 245 x 302 mm on original washline card mount (trimmed to a rough oval), 260 x 319 mm
Inscribed lower right: ‘W Turner Pinxt’
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the possible exception of the ‘Self-portrait’ in the Indianapolis Museum of Art which, if by Turner, may date from 1791–2, this is the earliest exercise in oil to survive. (The Indianapolis self-portrait has a distinguished provenance and is accepted, though with reservations, by Butlin and Joll,1 but is difficult to reconcile with Turner’s work of even so early a moment as this. It appears to derive from the little miniature that Turner painted of himself, now in the National Portrait Gallery, London. A genuine work of the 1790s may conceivably lie beneath the present paint layer, which gives the impression of having been applied in the late nineteenth century. The overall effect is of a sentimental attempt to evoke the portrait of a late eighteenth-century child.)
Although the present work does not appear to represent any literary subject, it is perhaps related to the oval composition illustrating Don Quixote (see under Tate D00189; Turner Bequest XVII N), which includes a watermill.
1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.19–20 no.20, pl.18.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Watermill 1792–3 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-a-watermill-r1140319, accessed 13 May 2024.