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

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

Joseph Mallord William Turner Kenilworth Castle from the South-South-West 1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Kenilworth Castle from the South-South-West’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 29 Verso:
Kenilworth Castle from the South-South-West 1830
D22029
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 29a
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘rnard | 20’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Kenilworth Castle is seen from the south-south-west, with the Strong Tower and Saintlowe Tower flanking the Great Hall on the left, Leicester’s Building to the right and the Great Tower rising between them on the north side of the inner court beyond Gaunt’s Tower. The view is continues to the right on folio 30 recto opposite (D22030).
Most of the sketches between folios 27 recto (D22024) and 37 verso (D22045) show Kenilworth. For the history of the castle and Turner’s subsequent watercolour, which Eric Shanes has described as a ‘synthesis’ of sketches between folios 28 verso (D22027) and 37 verso,1 see under the recto (D22028). Andrew Wilton2 followed Finberg3 in citing the present double-page spread as the source for the watercolour Kenilworth Castle, Warwickshire, c.1830 (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco),4 engraved in 1832 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04596, T06099), although the view on the recto (D22028) is closest in its juxtaposition of the various elements of the castle.

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Shanes 1979, p.156
2
Wilton 1979, p.398 under no.842.
3
Finberg 1909, II, p.730.
4
Wilton 1979, p.398 no.842, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Kenilworth Castle from the South-South-West 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-kenilworth-castle-from-the-south-south-west-r1148670, accessed 19 September 2024.