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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for a Wooded Classical Landscape Subject with Figures c.1823-4

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for a Wooded Classical Landscape Subject with Figures’ c.1823-4
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
Study for a Wooded Classical Landscape Subject with Figures c.1823–4
D17777
Turner Bequest CCIV 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 190 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘3 bottom right (now very faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCIV – 3’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This appears to be an imaginative composition for a scene from ancient history or myth. As Finberg noted, there is a ‘classical portico’ in the middle distance, with hills beyond and possibly to the right, while a jagged leaning form may indicate coastal rocks across a bay. There appear to be seated figures among the trees in the foreground, and the overall effect is loosely comparable with that of Turner’s large oil painting The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sybil, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1823 (Tate N00505).1
There are several sketches of this kind between folios 1 verso (D17774), under which the sequence is discussed, and 7 verso (D17782). The present composition is briefly continued to the left on folio 2 verso (D17776).
1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.139–40 no.230, pl.233 (colour).
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
November 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Study for a Wooded Classical Landscape Subject with Figures c.1823–4 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-study-for-a-wooded-classical-landscape-subject-with-figures-r1172485, accessed 25 April 2024.