JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A.
(1775-1851)

Norham Castle on the Tweed, Sunrise

1798

Pencil, watercolour

and some bodycolour

on paper

50.1 x 70.5 cm

P.724

Another version was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798 (no.353) as Norham Castle on the Tweed, Summer’s morn, with four lines from James Thomson’s poem Seasons. It was sold at Christie’s in 1987 and is now in a private collection. However, in past exhibitions and literature the Gallery’s watercolour was often listed as the R.A. exhibit until Hill clarified the confusion, although a soupçon of doubt may still exist.

Thornbury recounts the story of Turner and Cadell, Scott’s publisher, passing Norham in 1831. Turner then took off his hat and made a low bow to the ruins, explaining to the astonished Cadell: 'I made a drawing or painting of Norham several years since. It took; and from that day to this I have had as much to do as my hands could execute'. It seems very possible that is the watercolour to which Turner was referring to.                        

There are a number of  preparatory drawings and studies of Norham in the Turner Bequest and this watercolour was used as the basis for an engraving in the Liber Studiorum, 1816, (drawings in the possession of the late Lord Lascelles).

EJ 

PROVENANCE: Painted for Edward Lascelles at Harewood in 1798; Harewood sale Christie’s 1 May 1858, no.55, bought Colnaghi’s; John Dillon, sale Christie’s 17 April 1869, no.48 bought Agnew’s for W. Moir; bought from Mrs Moir by Agnew’s February 1899 and sold to Laundy Walters; by descent to his daughter Mrs Penrose and from her to her daughters the Misses Penrose; lent by Miss Penrose to the Gallery in February 1978 and later bequeathed by her to the National Art Collections Fund, who donated it to the Gallery in 1982.

EXHIBITIONS: Loan Collection of Pictures and Drawings by J.M.W Turner R.A, London, Corporation of London Art Gallery, Guildhall, 1899, no.55; Watercolours by J.M.W. Turner R.A., London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1913, no.39; The First Hundred Years of the Royal Academy 1769 –1868, London, Royal Academy, 1951-2, no.497; Bicentenary Exhibition 1768-1968, London, Royal Academy, 1968, no.531; Turner in the North of England 1797, London, Tate Gallery and Harewood House, 1997, no.130.

REFERENCES: W. Thornbury, Life and Correspondence of Turner, London, 1877, p.139; C.F. Bell, The Exhibited Works of J.M.W. Turner R.A, 1901, pp.34-5; Sir W. Armstrong, Turner, 1902, p.268; A.J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, 1961, pp.49-50; A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, 1979, pp.324,325, no.226; D. Hill, Turner in the North, 1996, pp.88ff, 180, pl.130.

Copyright © Trustees of Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford.

Extract taken from Watercolours and Drawings, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery by Evelyn Joll.