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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Farnley Hall and Yorkshire c.1808-24 > Farnley and Related Subjects > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Design for the Farnley Hall series of Historical Vignettes and Fairfaxiana; 'Civil War' c.1815-23

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Design for the Farnley Hall series of Historical Vignettes and Fairfaxiana; 'Civil War'’ c.1815-23
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Design for the Farnley Hall series of Historical Vignettes and Fairfaxiana; ‘Civil War’ c.1815–23
D12102
Turner Bequest CLIV D
Pencil on white wove paper, approximately 223 x 186 mm on sheet 223 x 372 mm, folded vertically down centre
Inscribed by Turner in pencil as part of the design (see main catalogue entry)
Watermarked ‘G & R TURNER’
Inscribed in pencil ‘CLIV D’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This drawing is one of four (including Tate D12100, D12101, D12103; Turner Bequest CLIV B, C, E) on the front and back of a single sheet of paper, folded in half, and presently unmounted. Finberg 1909 listed each as separate items, and the individual drawings have been stamped with the Turner Bequest number individually. Consequently, they are catalogued separately here. For clarity, the present drawing is the right hand drawing of the verso of the present sheet and D12101 (CLIV C) is the left half. D12100 and D12103 (CLIV B and E) make up the verso. See notes to D12100 for the historical background to these subjects, connected with the English Civil War, and their likely purpose as illustrations to a history of the period.
The present drawing is an unused design for the series and appears to have been a frontispiece to a section dealing with, as inscribed; ‘Civil War’. The title is let into a decorated tablet with at the top an emblematic detail, possibly of military detritus and with the indication of further motifs to the lop left and right of the tablet.
Verso:
Blank

David Hill
July 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Design for the Farnley Hall series of Historical Vignettes and Fairfaxiana; ‘Civil War’ c.1815–23 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-design-for-the-farnley-hall-series-of-historical-vignettes-r1146603, accessed 26 April 2024.