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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devon Rivers, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Great Torrington from the Torridge Valley 1814

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Great Torrington from the Torridge Valley’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 80 Recto:
Great Torrington from the Torridge Valley 1814
D09566
Turner Bequest CXXXII 80
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 152 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘80’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXII – 80’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
About five miles south-east of Bideford (see folio 76 recto; D09561), Great Torrington, the site of a Civil War battle in 1646, stands on a ridge high above the Common sloping down to the north bank of the River Torridge. The sketches between here and folio 88 recto (D09575) were made around the town, while the church on folio 88 verso (D09576) may be nearby. There are also views in the contemporary Devonshire Rivers, No. 3, and Wharfedale sketchbook (Tate D09809, D09810, and possibly D09829; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 18, 18a, 36).
Here, Turner looks north-west down the valley of the River Torridge, from around the site of New Bridge, built in the 1840s1 near the Town Mills. To left the tower on the skyline, seen in other drawings here, appears to be the gazebo or belvedere which still stands beside the bowling green on the site of the medieval castle off Castle Street.2 To the right of the dip in the centre is Castle Hill. There is a more extensive version of the view on folios 81 recto and 82 recto (D09567, D09568).
1
See Bridget Cherry and Nikolaus Pevsner, Devon, The Buildings of England, revised ed., New Haven and London 2002, p.460.
2
See ibid., p.463.
Technical notes:
There is some staining to the right-hand edge of the leaf.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
June 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Great Torrington from the Torridge Valley 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2014, 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-great-torrington-from-the-torridge-valley-r1147113, accessed 21 September 2024.