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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Architectural and Other Subjects c.1797 ... > Smaller Fonthill Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Oxford: Christ Church from the River ?1798-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Oxford: Christ Church from the River’ ?1798-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Oxford: Christ Church from the River ?1798–9
D08262
Turner Bequest CXXI G
Watercolour with scraping-out on white wove paper, 262 x 415 mm
Stamped in black ‘CXXI – G’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Although Finberg listed this sheet separately from the Smaller Fonthill sketchbook (TB XLVIII), it evidently belongs there, and its dimensions agree with that identification, although one of its edges is very irregular. The design is based on the pencil drawing D02237 (Turner Bequest XLVIII 2). As noted in the entry for that leaf, it was presumably executed in preparation for the watercolour South View of Christ Church, &c., from the Meadows (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford),1 published in the Oxford Almanack in 1799 (Tate impression: T05919). In style and palette it has much in common with the views that Turner made for Lord Mansfield’s set of views of the college; see Tate D02240, D02363, D02364 and D08192 (Turner Bequest XLVIII 5, L V, W, CXIX E).
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.333 no.295, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pen and brown ink ‘Christ Church Coll Oxford’ and ‘61’, and in pencil ‘8’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Oxford: Christ Church from the River ?1798–9 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, May 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-oxford-christ-church-from-the-river-r1180264, accessed 24 April 2024.