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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North of England 1797-1801 > North of England Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fountains Abbey: The Lay Brothers' Dormitory and Refectory with the River Skell 1797

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fountains Abbey: The Lay Brothers' Dormitory and Refectory with the River Skell’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 94 Recto:
Fountains Abbey: The Lay Brothers’ Dormitory and Refectory with the River Skell 1797
D01000
Turner Bequest XXXIV 89
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 210 x 270 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXXIV – 89’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is drawn with the page turned horizontally. This leaf was one of those removed for exhibition by John Ruskin. It probably belongs in the place where a drawing of Dryburgh Abbey has been bound out of sequence as folio 24 recto (D00929; Turner Bequest XXXIV 23). Turner made other drawings of Fountains Abbey in the contemporary Tweed and Lakes sketchbook (Tate D01010, D01082, D01083; Turner Bequest XXXV 7, 80, 81). A finished watercolour based on this drawing was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793 (435; York Art Gallery).1
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.326 no.238, reproduced).
Technical notes:
The page is discoloured from prolonged exposure.
Verso:
Inscribed (not in Turner’s hand) ‘Fountains Abbey’ and ‘58’; some paint smears; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
January 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fountains Abbey: The Lay Brothers’ Dormitory and Refectory with the River Skell 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-fountains-abbey-the-lay-brothers-dormitory-and-refectory-r1150158, accessed 23 April 2024.