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 Fonthill: Near View of the Abbey from the South, with Bitham Lake in the Foreground 1799

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fonthill: Near View of the Abbey from the South, with Bitham Lake in the Foreground’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Fonthill: Near View of the Abbey from the South, with Bitham Lake in the Foreground 1799
D02181
Turner Bequest XLVII 4
Pencil on white wove paper, 469 x 332 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Watermark ‘J Whatman 1794’
Stamped in black ‘XLVII 4’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Like D02187 (Turner Bequest XLVII 10), this is an upright composition which Turner may well have felt particularly suited to the towering architecture of Fonthill Abbey, although that format is not used for any of his finished views. However, a large colour study, Tate D04167 (Turner Bequest LXX P), showing the house at a distance across a wooded valley, does so. The final design of the ‘South view’ of Fonthill was adumbrated in the drawing on D02190 (Turner Bequest XLVII 13).
Technical notes:
For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 24, see the Introduction.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fonthill: Near View of the Abbey from the South, with Bitham Lake 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-near-view-of-the-abbey-from-the-south-with-bitham-r1174241, accessed 25 April 2024.