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 Abbey and Village Looking Downstream 1798

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tintern: The Abbey and Village Looking Downstream’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 18 Recto:
Tintern: The Abbey and Village Looking Downstream 1798
D01263
Turner Bequest XXXVIII 13
Pencil on white wove paper, 229 x 332 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘13’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XXXVIII 13’ bottom left, descending vertically
With the page turned horizontally, this is one of two general views at Tintern which Turner made on this tour, rather than studying the Abbey Church in more detail; see also folio 17 recto (D01333; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 79). He probably made use of this drawing when he came to make a finished watercolour of Tintern seen from across the Wye, now much faded, for Sir Watkin Williams Wynn (private collection).1
1
Woof and Hebron 1998, p.154, reproduced in colour.
Verso:
Blank; blue paint smears; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram. In the gutter are grey and yellow paint smears, suggesting that a sheet has been removed, as Finberg observed: ‘Leaf containing a water colour drawing torn out.’1 There is now a shallow stub of modern paper at this point. Edward Yardley suggested that the leaf may have been the sheet formerly known as ‘River and Castle with Two Bridges’ in Manchester Art Gallery,2 which he identified as showing Brecon Bridges and Castle.3 It has since been redated to about 1795 and related to a drawing in the earlier South Wales sketchbook (Tate D00653; Turner Bequest XXVI 91).4 See also folio 20 recto (D01265; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 15).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.84.
2
Timothy Clifford, J.M.W. Turner: Aquarelles de la City Art Gallery, Manchester, exhibition catalogue, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux 1983, p.33 no.5, reproduced.
3
Edward Yardley, ‘Picture Notes: “Two Bridges and the Castle, Brecknock”’, Turner Studies, vol.5 no.1, Summer 1985, p.60, reproducing a finished watercolour based on it, then untraced but now in a private collection as noted in Charles Nugent and Melva Croal, Turner Watercolors from Manchester, exhibition catalogue, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis 1997, p.27.
4
Nugent and Croal 1997, p.27 no.6, reproduced.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Tintern: The Abbey and Village Looking Downstream 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-abbey-and-village-looking-downstream-r1173156, accessed 27 April 2024.