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 A House beside an Estuary 1798

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A House beside an Estuary’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 67 Verso:
A House beside an Estuary 1798
D01810
Turner Bequest XLII 134
Pencil and gouache on buff laid paper, 174 x 125 mm
Stamped in black ‘XLII – 134’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the drawing is continued on folio 68 recto opposite (D01811; Turner Bequest XLII 135). The single building beside a wide inlet is somewhat reminiscent of Tygwyn Ferry opposite Harlech, which Turner drew in the 1798 North Wales sketchbook (Tate D01459; Turner Bequest XXXIX 95), and in his painting of Harlech Castle, from Twgwyn Ferry, Summer’s Evening Twilight, shown at the Royal Academy in 1799 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven);1 however, the similarities are superficial and it seems clear that this is a spot in southern Wales.

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.6–7 no.9, pl.8 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A House beside an Estuary 1798 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-a-house-beside-an-estuary-r1174005, accessed 21 September 2024.