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.2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trees with Antony Passage and Trematon Castle across the St Germans or Lynher River Beyond 1814

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trees with Antony Passage and Trematon Castle across the St Germans or Lynher River Beyond’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 36 Recto:
Trees with Antony Passage and Trematon Castle across the St Germans or Lynher River Beyond 1814
D09712
Turner Bequest CXXXIII 36
Pencil on white wove paper, 178 x 110 mm
Part watermark ‘ows | 12’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘36’ top right, and ‘294’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIII 36’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing continues on the opposite page (Tate D09711; Turner Bequest CXXXIII 35a). The view is north from around Jupiter Point below Antony House, looking across the St Germans or Lynher River to Antony Passage and the keep of Trematon Castle. For other views on and around the river, see under folio 27 verso (D09700).
Andrew Wilton has described this double-page spread and the further study on folio 37 recto (D09713) as ‘a rare exception’, when Turner actually ‘stop[ped] to sketch a tree’.1 Finberg notes that the present two-page drawing was: ‘Described by Mr. Ruskin as “Crossing Brook.”’2 The source of John Ruskin’s comment, whether published or manuscript, is unclear, but it refers to Turner’s major West Country oil painting Crossing the Brook, exhibited in 1815 (Tate N00497),3 a view south down the Tamar Valley from above Gunnislake Bridge with trees on each side. Any slight overall compositional similarity here is entirely fortuitous. Ruskin actually exhibited the related drawing on D09713 as a study for the painting. For sketches relating directly to Crossing the Brook, probably made in 1813, see the Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate D10271, D10273, D10274; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 46a, 47a, 48).
1
Wilton 1974, p.24.
2
Finberg 1909, I, p.377; see also Smiles 1987, p.14 note 32.
3
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.93–4 no.130, pl.123 (colour).
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
July 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Trees with Antony Passage and Trematon Castle across the St Germans or Lynher River Beyond 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-trees-with-antony-passage-and-trematon-castle-across-the-st-r1147263, accessed 23 September 2024.