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 A Cloudy Sky, with Rain c.1820-40

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Cloudy Sky, with Rain’ c.1820-40
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Cloudy Sky, with Rain c.1820–40
D25261
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 139
Watercolour on white wove paper, 302 x 434 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards top left
Inscribed in red ink ‘139’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 139’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The upper half of this barely developed composition shows heavy cloud, apparently with strokes at the top centre indicating rain; the lower half is effectively blank, although it may fortuitously serve to evoke the sky reflected in water.
Technical notes:
There is brown staining at the lower right. Finberg noted that this sheet, Tate D25255, D25259 and D25260 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 133, 137 and 138), respectively a landscape and two sky studies (addressed elsewhere in the present section), are all of the same dimensions and may have been leaves of a sketchbook.1 In the light of this, Eric Shanes has noted that D25260 bears an 1811 watermark, and has discussed various possibilities regarding the dating of D25259 from the late 1810s on.2 A generic date of c.1820–40, as noted in the Introduction to this subsection, has nevertheless been retained for the present work.
1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.825.
2
See Shanes 1997, p.91 note 7.1
Verso:
Blank; laid down.

Matthew Imms
March 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Cloudy Sky, with Rain 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-a-cloudy-sky-with-rain-r1183152, accessed 26 April 2024.