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 The Chinese Fishing Temple and other Buildings beside Virginia Water c.1827

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Chinese Fishing Temple and other Buildings beside Virginia Water’ c.1827
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Verso:
The Chinese Fishing Temple and other Buildings beside Virginia Water c.1827
D22115
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 72a
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this view to the north-west across Virginia Water continues across folio 75 recto opposite (D22116; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 73), where the Chinese Fishing Temple is seen on its moated island overlooking the lake. The footbridge over the moat seen here, or a similar replacement, survives, although the house has been replaced or remodelled as the present building at or near the same spot has two gables facing this way. The round forms along the lake are probably buoys of the kind seen more prominently in the foreground of the watercolour Virginia Water of about 1829 (private collection),1 one of two engraved for The Keepsake in 1830 (Tate impressions: T04618, T06141), for which this double-page view is the closest source.
For other views around Virginia Water, see under folio 73 verso (D22113; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 71a).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.359 no.519, pl.141 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Chinese Fishing Temple and other Buildings beside Virginia Water c.1827 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-the-chinese-fishing-temple-and-other-buildings-beside-r1148756, accessed 25 April 2024.