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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Tour of Yorkshire 1816 > Yorkshire 4 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mortham Tower, near Rokeby and the River Tees 1816

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mortham Tower, near Rokeby and the River Tees’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Mortham Tower, near Rokeby and the River Tees 1816
D11479
Turner Bequest CXLVII 25
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 206 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Tees’ bottom right
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘279’ bottom right and ‘25’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CXLVII 25’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The present sketch is taken from near the right bank of the River Tees, and records the view of Mortham Tower at the top left, panning far enough to the right to include the junction of the Tees with the River Greta. The present writer has dated Turner’s visit to Mortham Tower to Wednesday 31 July 1816, when he also sketched a closer view of the building in the Yorkshire 2 sketchbook (Tate D11212; Turner Bequest CXLV 105a). Turner revisited the subject in 1831 in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border sketchbook (Tate D25830–D25831; Turner Bequest CCLXVI 35a–36), and subsequently developed a studio watercolour Junction of the Greta and Tees (private collection)1 for engraving to illustrate ‘Rokeby’ in Sir Walter Scott’s Poetical Works, published in 1834.
Mortham Tower is a fortified manor house dating back in parts to the fourteenth century. It is a private house, but may be seen from the public footpath nearby. Scott’s poem Rokeby, in which it features, was first published in 1813 so it seems a reasonable assumption that Turner was already familiar with it.
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.429 no.1086.
Verso:
Blank

David Hill
February 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Mortham Tower, near Rokeby and the River Tees 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-mortham-tower-near-rokeby-and-the-river-tees-r1143615, accessed 25 April 2024.