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 A Standing Angler in a Tall Hat and Other Figures at a Country Weir c.1834-6

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Standing Angler in a Tall Hat and Other Figures at a Country Weir’ c.1834-6
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 20 Verso:
A Standing Angler in a Tall Hat and Other Figures at a Country Weir c.1834–6
D27762
Turner Bequest CCLXXXI 20a
Pencil on white wove paper, 79 x 101 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As set out in the Introduction, this is one of a sequence running through the middle of this sketchbook showing a substantial rural weir with a fence-like wooden superstructure, populated by numerous adults and children engaged in or watching fishing. The location is unidentified. Here, an elegant man in a dark coat and tall hat fishes in the waters of the weir while others look on; he is presumably the man shown previously on folios 18 verso and 19 verso (D27758, D27760). Robert Upstone has noted that ‘it is thought that the man in the top-hat and coat may be the artist’:1 if so, Turner has presented himself rather dashingly in this sequence.
The landscape is continued on folio 21 recto opposite (D27763).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
Upstone 1993, p.132.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Standing Angler in a Tall Hat and Other Figures at a Country Weir 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-a-standing-angler-in-a-tall-hat-and-other-figures-at-a-r1149123, accessed 26 April 2024.