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

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this sketch of industrial buildings was perhaps made beside the Dudley Canal at Tipton. Later developments and trees make hamper the identification of a precise viewpoint. The tower on the skyline may be the ruined keep of Dudley Castle,1 or possibly St Andrew’s Church, Netherton, further south; compare folios 39 verso and 46 recto (D22396, D22409). Turner drew the church in the contemporary Kenilworth sketchbook (Tate D22021; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 25a).

Turner’s watercolour Dudley, Worcestershire of about 1832 (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight),2 engraved in 1835 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T05097, T06113, T06114), combines the castle ruins on the skyline with a busy foreground comprising a canal and industrial buildings including smoking chimneys and furnaces. The buildings here may have informed those on the right of the watercolour, which include brightly glowing furnaces.

For other views of Dudley, see under folio 39 recto (D22395).

Technical notes:

The recto (D22403) and verso of this leaf are affected by the extensive pale brown, mottled staining which extends throughout the previous gathering (folios 31–42; D22379–D22402) and also folio 30 (D22377, D22378), as discussed in the Technical notes to the sketchbook’s introduction.