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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Architectural and Other Subjects c.1797 ... > Swans Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study of a Fallen Tree Lying Partly in Water ?1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study of a Fallen Tree Lying Partly in Water’ ?1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 59 Verso:
Study of a Fallen Tree Lying Partly in Water ?1799
D01793
Turner Bequest XLII 118
Pencil and gouache on buff laid paper, 174 x 125 mm
Stamped in black ‘XLII – 118’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing is continued on folio 60 recto opposite (D01794; Turner Bequest XLII 119). Jerrold Ziff has suggested1 that that is a study for the tree-trunk in Turner’s 1802 Royal Academy painting Jason (Tate N00471).2 There does not seem to be sufficient specific similarity to justify this inference. Turner made a number of studies of felled or damaged trees at about this time, many of them probably in the grounds of Fonthill, Wiltshire, where he was working on commission for William Beckford in 1799.
1
Ziff 1980, p.168; see also Butlin and Joll 1984, p.19.
2
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.18 no.19, pl.15.
Technical notes:
There are some adventitious brown ink blots.

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study of a Fallen Tree Lying Partly in Water ?1799 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-study-of-a-fallen-tree-lying-partly-in-water-r1173989, accessed 19 September 2024.