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 ... > Fonthill Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trees by the Lake in Old Fonthill Park, with a River God seated among Rushes 1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trees by the Lake in Old Fonthill Park, with a River God seated among Rushes’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Trees by the Lake in Old Fonthill Park, with a River God seated among Rushes 1799
D02196
Turner Bequest XLVII 19
Pencil on white wove paper, 469 x 330 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XLVII 19’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The statue of a river god was evidently one of the ornaments in the grounds of Fonthill Splendens, laid out by ‘Alderman’ Beckford (William Beckford, 1709–1770), the father of Turner’s patron William Beckford (1760–1844); see D02178 (Turner Bequest XLVII 1).
There are unrelated sketches from paintings by Claude Lorrain on the verso (D41265).
Technical notes:
There are smears of blue, green, yellow and brown colour. For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 21, see the Introduction.

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Trees by the Lake in Old Fonthill Park, with a River God seated among Rushes 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-trees-by-the-lake-in-old-fonthill-park-with-a-river-god-r1174237, accessed 26 April 2024.