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 > The Aqueduct Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Dead Bird c.1816-18

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?A Dead Bird’ c.1816-18
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Recto:
?A Dead Bird c.1816–18
D11992
Turner Bequest CLII 14
Pencil on white wove paper, 117 x 180 mm
Inscribed by an unknown hand in red ink ‘14’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in brown ‘CLII 14’ bottom left, descending vertically
Said by Finberg to be ‘blank and torn’, this sheet has been reconstituted to restore the right half and can be seen to bear a few pencil lines towards the left edge. The subject is not altogether certain, but is possibly a dead bird, laid on its back, the tail to the left, wings folded in. Turner painted a perhaps comparable watercolour of a Dead Ring Dove (or Woodpigeon) c.1816–18, in the ‘Farnley Book of Birds’ (Leeds City Art Gallery).1
1
David Hill and Michael Densley, Turner’s Birds: Bird Studies from Farnley Hall, exhibition catalogue, Leeds City Art Gallery 1988, p.42 reproduced in colour.
Verso:
Blank

David Hill
September 2008

How to cite

David Hill, ‘?A Dead Bird c.1816–18 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2008, 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-a-dead-bird-r1147019, accessed 27 April 2024.