Property from a British Private Collection
Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.
Patterdale, with Ullswater beyond
Auction Closed
January 31, 05:59 PM GMT
Estimate
50,000 - 80,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Property from a British Private Collection
Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.
London 1775 - 1851
Patterdale, with Ullswater beyond
Watercolor over pencil, heightened with brown ink and stopping out;
signed lower right: J.M.W. Turner RA
206 by 296 mm; 8 ⅛ by 11 ⅝ in.
his sale, London, Christie's, 26 May 1860, lot 36, bt Rought,
probably Joseph Gillott (1799-1872), of Birmingham,
by descent to his son, Joseph Gillott of Berry Hall, Solihull, Warwickshire (d. 1904),
his executor's sale, London, Christie's, 30 April 1904, lot 24, bt Wallis,
with Scott & Fowles, London,
Patrick A. Valentine (1861-1916),
by descent to his wife, Mary Lester Armour Valentine (d. 1965),
her sale, New York, Parke-Bernet, 18 April 1962, lot 67, bt jointly by Newhouse Galleries, New York & Agnew's, London,
by whom sold to a cousin of the present owner, May 1962
London, Tate and Leeds, Harewood House, Turner in the North of England, 1997, no. 66
A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p. 325, no. 229
E. Yardley, 'Picture Notes', Turner Studies, vol. 5, no. 2, 1985, pp. 54-6, illustr.;
D. Hill, Turner in the North, New Haven 1996, pp. 124, 126 & 194, no. 182
Engraved:
by J. Heath for Joseph Mawman's Excursion to the Highlands and the English Lakes, 1805 (R. 75)
As with lot 188, the present watercolor was chosen by Joseph Mawman to be engraved for his 1805 publication Excursions to the Highlands and English Lakes. Turner had visited the remote village of Patterdale, which lies at the southern end of Lake Ullswater, in the high summer of 1797 and there is a surviving pencil drawing in his so-called Tweed and Lakes Sketchbook that clearly acted as the starting point for the present work.1
Turner’s 1797 tour to the north of England was his first. It has been described as ‘one of the most important of his career’, for he went in search of castles and abbeys but instead became transfixed by the grandeur of the natural world; perhaps the central theme of his life.2
In the present watercolor Turner looks northwards from a slightly elevated position. It is late afternoon and the sun’s low position in the sky is made clear by the long shadows that ‘rake across the fellsides’.3 On the lakeshore a cluster of small fishing boats can just be made out while, in the foreground, village life unfolds before us: a herdsman leans against a large boulder warming himself in the sun, while his cattle wallow in the river. To the left a woman, dressed in a blue and white striped apron, has clearly come from the nearby cottage to fetch water.
The first years of the new century were exciting times for Turner. In 1802 he was elected a full member of the Royal Academy and with the support of both his peers and many of the great patrons of day, he was firmly establishing himself as one of the leading painters of his generation.
This and the following lot have a long and distinguished history. Their first known owner was Henry Bradley of Leamington, Worcestershire, a magistrate, noted master of hounds and patron of the arts. They may well have formed part of the collection of Joseph Gillott, the Birmingham pen manufacturer who became one of Turner's major patrons, and they were certainly included in his son's executor's sale in 1904, where Christie's noted that 'many of the Pictures and Drawings came from the celebrated Collection of Joseph Gillott Esq of Birmingham.' Later they crossed the Atlantic and entered the collection of Patrick A. Valentine of Chicago, before being acquired by the present owner's family in 1962.
We are very grateful to Ian Warrell and Neil Jeffares for their help when cataloguing this lot.
1. Tweed and Lake Sketchbook, Turner Bequest, TB XXXV 44
2. Hill, op. cit., p. 1
3. Ibid., p. 126
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