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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Erotica and Improvisations c.1834-6 > Fishing at the Weir Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trees beside Water, with a Distant Church Spire c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trees beside Water, with a Distant Church Spire’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Verso:
Trees beside Water, with a Distant Church Spire c.1834–6
D27749
Turner Bequest CCLXXXI 14
Pencil on white wove paper, 79 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are hints of reflections below the willows in the foreground, and the view is presumably across a pond or stream, towards a church with its short spire in the distance. The numerous unidentified landscapes in this sketchbook are noted in the Introduction. Some may have been recorded in the vicinity of the scenes of fishing at a weir which begin on folio 15 verso (D27752); the pencil used here is unusually soft for Turner, and seems to match that used for the weir scenes.
The blank recto is numbered by John Ruskin in red ink ‘14’ and stamped ‘CCLXXXI – 14’.

Matthew Imms
April 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Trees beside Water, with a Distant Church Spire c.1834–6 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, 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-trees-beside-water-with-a-distant-church-spire-r1149112, accessed 25 April 2024.