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 ... > Architectural Drawings for Commissions > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Brocklesby Mausoleum c.1798

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Brocklesby Mausoleum’ c.1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Brocklesby Mausoleum c.1798
D08277
Turner Bequest CXXI U
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 430 x 636 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman 1797’
Inscribed in pencil ‘CXXI U’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXI – U’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject is apparently derived from the sketch on Tate D05160 (Turner Bequest LXXXIII 2), but it is not drawn on a leaf from the Brocklesby Mausoleum book, being of a considerably larger format. It is perhaps preparatory for a finished watercolour, which may have been intended as one of a group for Lord Yarborough; see under D05159 (Turner Bequest LXXXIII 1) and the Introduction to this subsection, though it is uncertain whether one or more works were involved in his commission. Whatever the commission, its results were destroyed by fire at Brocklesby Hall in the nineteenth century.1 A large undated aquatint by F.C. Lewis after Turner (impressions: British Museum, London) records a near view of the mausoleum with distant glimpse of the Humber; it does not correspond to any of the surviving studies. Turner made a coloured view of the interior of the Mausoleum as an illustration to one of his Perspective Lectures (Tate D17101; Turner Bequest CXCV 130).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.337 no.330.
Technical notes:
The sheet is faded from exposure. It was originally pinned to a drawing board, with a border of approximately 15 mm round the lower three sides.
Verso:
Slight pencil studies of details of the Mausoleum. Inscribed by A.J. Finberg in pencil ‘Brocklesby Mausoleum’; not stamped.

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘The Brocklesby Mausoleum c.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-the-brocklesby-mausoleum-r1174098, accessed 25 April 2024.