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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Fonthill Abbey Seen in the Distance beyond Trees, with the Ruins of Old Wardour Castle and Farm Buildings in the Foreground 1799

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Fonthill Abbey Seen in the Distance beyond Trees, with the Ruins of Old Wardour Castle and Farm Buildings in the Foreground 1799
D02186
Turner Bequest XLVII 9
Pencil on white wove paper, 306 x 469 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman 1794’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Ti’ (for ‘tiles’) and ‘Th’ (for ‘thatch’) below right of centre on roofs
Stamped in black ‘XLVII 9’ bottom right
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Old Wardour Castle, sited on a high wooded slope some four miles south of Fonthill Gifford, dates from the end of the fourteenth century. It was extensively altered by Sir Matthew Arundell, who acquired it in 1570. A large house, built to designs by James Payne in the 1770s, replaced the old castle as Lord Arundell’s principal seat. Another drawing showing the castle is D02195 (Turner Bequest XLVII 18).
Technical notes:
For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 18, see the Introduction.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fonthill Abbey Seen in the Distance beyond Trees, with the Ruins of Old Wardour Castle and Farm Buildings in the Foreground 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-fonthill-abbey-seen-in-the-distance-beyond-trees-with-the-r1174234, accessed 23 April 2024.