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 Weir Head on the River Tamar, with Gunnislake Beyond 1814

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Weir Head on the River Tamar, with Gunnislake Beyond’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 143 Recto:
Weir Head on the River Tamar, with Gunnislake Beyond 1814
D09660
Turner Bequest CXXXII 143
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 152 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘143’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXII – 143’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Diana Cook and Dorothy Kirk confirm that Turner looked northwards from Colley Cliff on the Calstock to Gunnislake road, recording the Tamar at Weir Head (the limit of the tidal river) and the short, straight canal by-passing it, with Gunnislake on the slopes beyond; the view is now largely obstructed by trees, but they reproduce a photograph of about 1900, when the scene remained recognisable.1 Roughly the same view is shown in the slighter sketch on folio 139 recto (D09652).
There is a similar view from near the church at Calstock, further south, in the contemporary Devonshire Rivers, No. 3, and Wharfedale sketchbook (Tate D09835; Turner Bequest CXXXIV 40).
For other views along the Tamar Valley, see under folio 114 verso (D09606).

Matthew Imms
June 2014

1
Cook and Kirk 2001, p.41, with a further photograph from about 1900 and a modern one by Kirk reproduced p.42; Cook and Kirk 2009, p.40.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Weir Head on the River Tamar, with Gunnislake Beyond 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-weir-head-on-the-river-tamar-with-gunnislake-beyond-r1147209, accessed 26 April 2024.