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 A Leafless Tree near a Cottage in a Wood 1799

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Leafless Tree near a Cottage in a Wood’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 49 Recto:
A Leafless Tree near a Cottage in a Wood 1799
D01988
Turner Bequest XLV 48
Pencil on white wove paper, 225 x 329 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Inscribed in pencil ‘48’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘XLV-48’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Ian Warrell, following Warburton’s tacit association of the drawing with Turner’s tour for Dr Whitaker,1 assumes that this is a scene ‘near Whalley’,2 as indeed it may be; though there is no internal evidence to confirm this. The stone and slate construction of the cottage or hut, with its grindstone outside the door, is consistent with a location in both Lancashire and North Wales. The slight studies of battlements on the verso (D41274) are however perhaps more likely to be connected with Caernarvon or Beaumaris than Whalley; compare folio 5 verso (D01917).
1
See Warburton 1982, p.16.
2
See Warrell 1991, p.40.
Technical notes:
The sheet is discoloured from exposure.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Leafless Tree near a Cottage in a Wood 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-a-leafless-tree-near-a-cottage-in-a-wood-r1177866, accessed 24 April 2024.