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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dudley: Looking South-West from the Castle towards the Clent Hills 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 70 Recto:
Dudley: Looking South-West from the Castle towards the Clent Hills 1830
D22107
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 68
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘68’ bottom left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXVIII – 68’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this view continues to the right half way across folio 69 verso opposite (D22106; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 67a). It shows Dudley, apparently from the ruins of the castle’s barbican, looking south-west over the town with the tower of St Edmund’s Church on the left and the spire of St Thomas’s beyond to the right. ‘Factory chimneys of different sizes are interspersed throughout the sketch.’1 As part of unpublished Turner research informed by local knowledge, Dr Bernard Richards has noted that the view is in the direction of the Clent Hills;2 the prospect is now almost entirely urban. The church seen in distant outline above St Edmund’s appears to be St Andrew’s, Netherton (see folio 25 verso; D22021).
There is a similar prospect from a little lower on folio 72 recto (D22111; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 70). For other views of Dudley see under folio 23 recto (D22016).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Rodner 1997, p.113; see also Rodner 1988, p.35.
2
Conversation with the author, 14 May 2013.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Dudley: Looking South-West from the Castle towards the Clent Hills 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-dudley-looking-south-west-from-the-castle-towards-the-clent-r1148748, accessed 29 March 2024.