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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dolbadarn Castle: Colour Study ?1799-1800

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Dolbadarn Castle: Colour Study ?1799–1800
D04166
Turner Bequest LXX O
Watercolour ?mixed with paste with stopping-out on white wove paper prepared with a pale blue ground, 670 x 980 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXX – O’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This striking study, notable for its experimental bravura, is probably based on a drawing in the 1798 North Wales sketchbook (Tate D01388; Turner Bequest XXXIX 33). It and two other large studies (Tate D01115, D04187; XXXVI U, LXX j), executed in a similar palette, perhaps belong to 1798–9 rather than 1799–1800.
Technical notes:
The exact composition of the gluey paste used with the brown pigment has not been fully described, though Peter Bower suggests that it is a clay-based natural earth. He also says that the stopping-out that is so conspicuous a feature of this and the other two drawings in this group, was achieved by applying washes of gelatine, later removed with warm water. Bower speculates that the paper is Whatman, made by Balston and the Hollingworth Brothers at Turkey Mill, Kent.1
1
See Bower 1990, p.71.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Dolbadarn Castle: Colour Study ?1799–1800 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-dolbadarn-castle-colour-study-r1180047, accessed 29 March 2024.