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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Midlands 1830 > Birmingham and Coventry Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Leicester from the Abbey on the River Soar 1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Leicester from the Abbey on the River Soar’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Recto:
Leicester from the Abbey on the River Soar 1830
D22367
Turner Bequest CCXL 25
Pencil on white wove paper, 68 x 110 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘25’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXL – 25’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Although Finberg bracketed this page with the studies of Hardingstone Cross on folio 24 verso opposite (D22366) as ‘Gothic monument, with view of city’,1 the sketches are separate. The present page shows Leicester to the south along the valley of the River Soar, with the outer wall of the ruined Leicester Abbey on the right; the view is now obscured by trees. The skyline is comparable with that in the view of the abbey in the contemporary Kenilworth sketchbook (Tate D22006; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 18). The prominent tower is that of St Margaret’s Church, with the spire of St Martin’s (later Leicester Cathedral) beyond. Another Kenilworth sketch, (Tate D22130; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 80), may also show St Margaret’s beyond the ruins.

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.739.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Leicester from the Abbey on the River Soar 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, 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-leicester-from-the-abbey-on-the-river-soar-r1148517, accessed 20 April 2024.