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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North Wales 1799-1801 > Lancashire and North Wales Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Whalley Abbey: Part of the Ruins, with the River Calder, looking East 1799

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Whalley Abbey: Part of the Ruins, with the River Calder, looking East’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 31 Verso:
Whalley Abbey: Part of the Ruins, with the River Calder, looking East 1799
D01961
Turner Bequest XLV 31a
Pencil on white wove paper, 225 x 329 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner made many drawings of the ruins of the fourteenth-century Cistercian abbey at Whalley in this sketchbook and the contemporary Dolbadarn book (Tate D02003, D02005–D02006, D02009; Turner Bequest XLVI 8, 9a–10, 11a). Here, he looks eastward along the north bank of the River Calder towards Whalley Bridge; the southern end of the two-storey dormitory range is on the left.
Turner treated the bridge in more detail in his drawing on folio 35 verso (D01969). Further studies of the ruins in are on folio 34 verso (D01967) and folios 44 recto, 45 recto and 50 recto (D01983, D01984, D01989; Turner Bequest XLV 43, 44, 49).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Whalley Abbey: Part of the Ruins, with the River Calder, looking East 1799 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-whalley-abbey-part-of-the-ruins-with-the-river-calder-r1177836, accessed 11 May 2024.