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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Scotland 1801-10 > Chester Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Ruins of ?Brougham Castle 1801

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Ruins of ?Brougham Castle’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Recto:
The Ruins of ?Brougham Castle 1801
D05101
Turner Bequest LXXXII 24
Pencil on white wove paper, 161 x 256 mm
Inscribed in pencil ‘21’ bottom right, descending vertically
Blind–stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘24’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXXXII – 24’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. The likely subject, Brougham Castle, a thirteenth–century fortification two miles to the east of Penrith on the banks of the River Eamont, was close to Turner’s route south from Carlisle into Lancashire and with its keep and handsome piles of substantial masonry would have provided an obvious subject for a sketch. Brougham is probably the subject of further studies on folios 25 recto and 26 recto (D05102, D05103).
Turner revisited Brougham in 1809 and made two sketches of the castle in the Vale of Heathfield sketchbook (Tate D10314, D10315; Turner Bequest CXXXVII 70, 71); these resulted in a finished watercolour showing the ruin under a stormy sky with a rainbow (Tate D18147; Turner Bequest CCVIII N),1 engraved for the Rivers of England in 1825 as Brougham Castle, near the Junction of the Rivers Eamont and Lowther (Tate impression: T04809).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.385 no.740, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘The Ruins of ?Brougham Castle 1801 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-the-ruins-of-brougham-castle-r1178670, accessed 25 April 2024.