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

This is the right part of a double-page spread continued from folio 35 verso (D11555; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 19a, now bound opposite), recording the view from the left bank of the River Wharfe, just downstream of Conistone Bridge with Kilnsey village and Crag over the bridge to the left, and Conistone village to the right; D11555 has an additional detail of Conistone Chapel. Turner drew Kilnsey from a nearer viewpoint on folio 34 verso (D11553; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 18a), and the present subject was rehearsed in a quick sketch in the Yorkshire 2 sketchbook (Tate D11305; Turner Bequest CXLV 153). The present writer dates Turner’s sketches at Kilnsey to Friday 28 July 1816.

In the present binding of the sketchbook the sketches of Kilnsey interrupt views of Mossdale Fall in Wensleydale, which Turner visited some days after Kilnsey. A fairly comprehensive reordering of this part of the book appears to be required. For further comment see notes to folio 33 verso (D11576; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 31a).

Turner’s inscription appears to record a commission by Charles Cope of Leeds. A similar inscription appears on folio 32 recto with the additional date ‘1825’ (D11564; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 25). Charles Cope was an artist in his own right, and also an engraver, and it may be that he intended to publish a couple of Turner subjects, seemingly some nine years after the drawings were made. Turner also referred to the sketchbook in the mid-1820s for compositions for his series of Picturesque Views in England and Wales.

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