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

Subsequent to Finberg’s 1909 Inventory, both he and the Turner scholar C.F. Bell identified the subject here as ‘Skyline, Hampton Court Palace’.1 The top drawing, with the sails of a Thames barge on the left, the low Banqueting House in the middle and the turrets of the Tudor part of the palace towards the right, shows roughly the same aspect of the complex, north across the River Thames, as in the watercolour Hampton Court Palace of about 1827 (private collection),2 engraved in 1829 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impression: T04550). The sketch below the centre shows the turrets again, with the Baroque façade of the eastern end of the south front beyond trees to the right, while the detail at the bottom left focuses further on the right-hand end of that range.

There are comparably quick details on folios 39 verso and 41 verso (D20792, D20796; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 37a, 39a); see under folio 2 verso for other studies in this sketchbook.