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 Cliviger Gorge from Holme Chapel 1799

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cliviger Gorge from Holme Chapel’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Verso:
Cliviger Gorge from Holme Chapel 1799
D01976
Turner Bequest XLV 39a
Pencil on white wove paper, 225 x 329 mm
Blind-stamped twice with Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a slight sketch, one of four showing Cliviger Gorge near T.D. Whitaker’s house, The Holme, whose roof is probably that visible among trees at the left. The viewpoint is a knoll in the village of Holme Chapel, probably close to the parish church of St John the Divine, which Whitaker had built on the site of an earlier chapel in 1788–94; the pillar in the left foreground may be either a gate-post or a monument in the churchyard.
Turner is looking south-east, and has included both sides of the Gorge: the high western cliffs to the right and the loosely heaped, lower hills to the east (on the left of the drawing). His other drawings of the Gorge are on the versos of folios 37, 38 and 40 (D01972, D01974, D01978). Turner’s view of The Holme itself is on folios 14 verso–15 recto (D01928–D01929).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Cliviger Gorge from Holme Chapel 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-cliviger-gorge-from-holme-chapel-r1177851, accessed 16 April 2024.