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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Hereford Court Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tintern: The Ruined Gatehouse of the Abbey, from the Wye 1798

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tintern: The Ruined Gatehouse of the Abbey, from the Wye’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Recto:
Tintern: The Ruined Gatehouse of the Abbey, from the Wye 1798
D01333
Turner Bequest XXXVIII 79
Pencil with watercolour, 229 x 332 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram centre right
Stamped in black ‘XXXVIII 79’ bottom left, descending vertically
Turner had made careful drawings of the impressive ruins of Tintern Abbey on his first visit to the Wye Valley in 1792 (Tate D00131–D00134; Turner Bequest XII B, C, D, E), and worked them up into a group of fine watercolours (Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; two at the British Museum, London; Museu Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon);1 see also Tate D00374 (Turner Bequest XXIII A). He evidently did not feel the need to add to the notes he already possessed of the architecture of the principal building, and so on this and the following page, folio 18 recto (D01263; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 13), contented himself with more general views, drawn with the page turned horizontally.
In 1909 Finberg suggested that this page, then loose, was ‘Probably p.47 a’,2 that is to say originally between the present folios 77 recto and 79 recto (D01301, D01302; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 47, 48); D01325 (Turner Bequest XXXVIII 71) has subsequently been bound in there as folio 78 recto.
1
Respectively Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.307 nos.57–61, all but the last reproduced.
2
Finberg 1909, I, p.88; see also p.86.
Verso:
Blank; not stamped.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Tintern: The Ruined Gatehouse of the Abbey, from the Wye 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, 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-tintern-the-ruined-gatehouse-of-the-abbey-from-the-wye-r1173155, accessed 18 April 2024.