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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Picturesque Composition with a Distant View of Tours from the North East c.1796

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Picturesque Composition with a Distant View of Tours from the North East’ c.1796
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Picturesque Composition with a Distant View of Tours from the North East c.1796
D00673
Turner Bequest XXVII L
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 242 x 342 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXVII L’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg had suggested that this was a view of Builth Wells, but J.P. Heseltine noted that the sheet has the air of both a copy and a Picturesque composition.1 It has now been identified as showing Tours. The town view must have been copied from a print, and Ian Warrell proposes that the subject was that of a print given Turner to copy by Dr Monro. The copying process is, however, very different from that of most Monro drawings, and includes, as Warrell notes, an elaborate foreground frame of road and trees which Turner presumably invented. A similar exercise is Tate D00674 (Turner Bequest XXVII M); see also Tate D00724 (Turner Bequest XXIX S).
1
MS notes, Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank; not stamped

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Picturesque Composition with a Distant View of Tours from the North East c.1796 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-picturesque-composition-with-a-distant-view-of-tours-from-r1141302, accessed 18 April 2024.