JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A.

(1775-1851)

Rokeby

1822

watercolour on paper

20.2 x 14.6 cm

P.100

Rokeby, a long poem by Sir Walter Scott, composed at Rokeby in 1809 and published in 1813, describes events after the battle of Marston Moor in 1644. The subject would have been of particular interest to Fawkes as he possessed a number of relics which had belonged to the Cromwellian General Thomas Fairfax (1612-71), who commanded a detachment at Marston Moor.

Turner made a number of sketches of these relics which were bound in an album of 'Fairfaxiana' still at Farnley. The poem is dedicated to John Morritt, owner of Rokeby park, where the 'Rokeby Venus' by Velasquez in the National Gallery came from, about three miles south‑east of Barnard Castle in County Durham.

Turner passed by Rokeby at the end of July 1816 on his northern tour that summer and pencil sketches inscribed 'Rokeby' occur in the 'Yorkshire 2' and 'Yorkshire 4' sketchbooks (Turner bequest CXLVII).

The watercolour depicts a narrow gorge between Rokeby and Mortham through which the River Greta pours just before it joins the River Tees. On the two large boulders in the foreground Turner has inscribed eight lines, not always accurately, from the poem's second canto.

Here, twixt Rock and River grew

A dismal grove of sable yew

With whose sad tints were mingled seen

The blighted firs sepulchar’l [sic] green  (Stanza IX,9‑12)

He who winds twixt scar and wave

May hear the headlong torrent rave

May view her chase her waves to spray

O'er every rock that bars her way  (Stanza VII, 15‑16, 19‑20)

 Eric Shanes, author of the 1997 exhibition catalogue Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810-1842, reproduces four preliminary studies, now in the Tate Gallery, London, for Rokeby. These show the trouble Turner took to ensure that his watercolour reflected the images described in the poem, particularly the 'headlong torrent’, and the dark tree girt ravine. The shut‑in composition is further emphasised by the figure scarcely able to get along the path between the trees on one side and the drop into the Greta on the other.   

EJ

PROVENANCE: Commissioned by Walter Fawkes of Farnley Hall in 1822 as one of seven watercolours to illustrate a volume of selected verses by Scott, Byron and Moore; by descent to Major Horton‑Fawkes, who sold it to Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 22 May 1952, from whom purchased by Gallery, September 1952.

EXHIBITIONS: The Farnley Collection of Paintings and Drawings by J.M.W. Turner R.A., Lawrie & Co, 1902, no.71; Turner Watercolours from Farnley Hall, Leeds, Leeds City Art Gallery, 1948, no.34 (wrongly entitled Glen Artney ‑ another Fawkes watercolour illustrating Scott's The Lady of the Lake; English Watercolours from the Hickman Bacon and other Collections, Bedford, Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, 1952, no.72, as Rokeby; Twixt Rock and River; Watercolours and Drawings from the Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd, 1962, no.49; Turner in Yorkshire, York, York City Art Gallery, 1980, no.77; Walking the Landscape: Cotman and Turner in Teesdale, Barnard Castle, Bowes Museum, 1996; Turner's Watercolour Explorations 1810-1842, London, Tate Gallery, Southampton, Southampton City Art Gallery, 1997, no.79.

REFERENCES: Sir W. Armstrong, Turner, 1902, p.274; A.J. Finberg, Turner's Watercolours at Farnley Hall, The Studio, 1912, p.27, no.167 as Glenartney, 'Here twixt rock and river..'; A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, 1979, p.424, repr. no.1053; G.Finley, Landscapes of Memory: Turner as Illustrator to Scott, 1980, p.75, pl.25 as View on the Greta River; D. Hill, In Turner's Footsteps, 1984, p.69, pl.65; E. Shanes, Turner's Watercolour Explorations 1810-1842, 1997, pp.84-86, repr.p.85.