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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Midlands 1794-1802 > Marford Mill Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Watermill c.1794

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Watermill’ c.1794
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 19 Recto:
A Watermill c.1794
D00284
Turner Bequest XX 19
Pencil on white laid paper, 99 x 152 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘19’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XX 19’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The trees in this drawing are continued onto folio 18 verso opposite (D00283). It was used as the basis for a finished watercolour (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester).1 Finberg tentatively but incorrectly identified this mill as that in the watercolour of Marford Mill, Wrexham, Denbighshire which Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1795 (National Museum Wales, Cardiff);2 hence his name for the book. The latter watercolour is based on Tate D00339 (Turner Bequest XXI L).
Compare the pencil drawing formerly in the C. Stokes and G. Goyder collections, inscribed ‘Tellhurst Mill Sussex’, which is of the same date and shows a very similar weatherboarded and tiled mill. (The drawing appeared on the art market in 2003. ‘Tellhurst’ is not the name of any known mill in Kent, and Robin Jones has identified the subject of the drawing as Tablehurst Mill, Forest Row.)3 A slight sketch of what made be another part of the same mill is on folio 24 recto (D00291).
1
Wilton 1979, p.310 no.83, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.313 no.125, reproduced.
3
See Robin Jones, ‘Tellhurst Watermill’, Sussex Mills Group, accessed 2009, http://www.sussexmillsgroup.org.uk/tellhurst.htm.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Watermill c.1794 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-r1140677, accessed 26 April 2024.