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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Colour Studies of the Sun, Skies and ... > Colour Studies of Clouds, Storms and a ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Studies of Skies above Landscapes or the Sea, by Day and at Sunset or Dawn c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Studies of Skies above Landscapes or the Sea, by Day and at Sunset or Dawn’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Two Studies of Skies above Landscapes or the Sea, by Day and at Sunset or Dawn c.1820–40
D25253
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 131
Watercolour on white wove paper, 357 x 348 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram above right of centre and towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘131’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 131’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Eric Shanes has tentatively suggested that the two studies on this almost square sheet are of ‘skies above the sea’.1 The strongly coloured upper composition shows the low sun rising or setting behind red clouds, with its light possibly reflected on a wet beach in the foreground. Below is a less dramatic scene of light cloud over what is probably a choppy sea.
Ian Warrell has noted the latter, the present work and the seascape studies on Tate D25237 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 115) as examples of Turner’s using a single sheet for variant studies;2 see also Tate D25253 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 131) in the present subsection.
Tate D25241 and D25244 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 119, 122) in this subsection are other examples of Turner’s using a single sheet for multiple sky studies.
1
Shanes 1997, p.102.
2
See Warrell 1991, p.41.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘AB 93 P | O’ top left, upside down; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII 131’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 131’ towards bottom left.

Matthew Imms
March 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Two Studies of Skies above Landscapes or the Sea, by Day and at Sunset or Dawn c.1820–40 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-studies-of-skies-above-landscapes-or-the-sea-by-day-and-r1183151, accessed 19 April 2024.