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 Abbey Seen from the South-West 1799

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fonthill Abbey Seen from the South-West’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Fonthill Abbey Seen from the South-West 1799
D02189
Turner Bequest XLVII 12
Pencil on white wove paper, 330 x 469 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Purple Broom’ bottom left
Inscribed in brown ink ‘2’ bottom right
Watermark ‘J Whatman 1794’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘XLVII 12’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The finished watercolour based on this drawing was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1800 with the title South-west view of a Gothic Abbey (Morning) now building at Fonthill, the seat of W. Beckford, Esq. (Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto),1 one of a set of five views recording different times of day in the grounds of Fonthill. A pencil note of the composition is in the Dolbadarn sketchbook (Tate D02152; Turner Bequest XLVI 106a).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.338 no.336, reproduced; see also ibid., nos.335, 337–339, reproduced, and pl.53.
Technical notes:
For a proposed sequence for the leaves of the disbound Fonthill sketchbook, with this page as folio 25, see the Introduction.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
March 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Fonthill Abbey Seen from the South-West 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-from-the-south-west-r1174242, accessed 25 April 2024.