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 > Watercolours Including Midland Subjects > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner An Old Woman in a Cottage Kitchen ('Internal of a Cottage, a Study at Ely') 1795-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Old Woman in a Cottage Kitchen ('Internal of a Cottage, a Study at Ely')’ 1795-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
An Old Woman in a Cottage Kitchen (‘Internal of a Cottage, a Study at Ely’) 1795–6
D00729
Turner Bequest XXIX X
Pencil and watercolour with scraping-out on white wove paper, 204 x 270 mm mounted on card, 210 x 280 mm
Inscribed by Turner in watercolour ‘W Turner’ at foot of wall centre left, and ‘W Turner’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXIX X’ on both watercolour and mount bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The identification of this work with that exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1796 is generally accepted; no other plausible candidate is known. Assuming that the identification with the ‘study at Ely’ is correct, the subject must have been noted during the 1794 tour; as no preparatory sketch is known, it is likely that this watercolour was worked up over an outline drawing made on the spot. It was thought in the nineteenth century to show Turner’s mother in the kitchen at Maiden Lane, Covent Garden.
As an exercise in chiaroscuro this marks a significant development in Turner’s technical progress. He had already essayed a firelit interior at the age of fifteen or thereabouts (Tate D00187; Turner Bequest XVII L); as one would expect, this shows increased subtlety and flexibility in the relation between outline and tone; and the subject forms a kind of prelude to the sequence of dramatically lit ecclesiastical interiors that he was to produce in the next few years. Indeed, two of the finest of these, showing the interior of the Octagon at Ely Cathedral (private collection; Aberdeen Art Gallery)1 were based on a pencil drawing made on this Midland tour (Tate D00369; Turner Bequest XXII P).
1
Wilton 1979, p.321 nos.194 and 195 respectively, reproduced.
Technical notes:
Like the view of Llangollen, Tate D00861 (Turner Bequest XXXII E), this work was mounted on thin card washed with grey; this has now been trimmed away to a width of only about 5 mm. Turner touched it at top and bottom with dark colour, presumably to fill the frame he had put the drawing into for exhibition.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed in a later hand ‘10’.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘An Old Woman in a Cottage Kitchen (‘Internal of a Cottage, a Study at Ely’) 1795–6 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-an-old-woman-in-a-cottage-kitchen-internal-of-a-cottage-a-r1141105, accessed 31 October 2025.