Studies of seals from Whalley Abbey, 1799-1800 |
|
 © The Fitzwilliam Museum Click on the image to view catalogue entry and access to a larger image |
Watercolour, pen and ink over
graphite on paper 267 x 194 mm Given by John Ruskin, 1861 no.569 Turner was in Lancashire in the autumn of 1799 preparing drawings for the Rev.T.D. Whittaker’s History of the Parish of Whalley, which was published between 1800 and 1801 with plates engraved by James Basire after Turner’s designs. Seven seals from the present drawing were engraved by Basire and appear among the fifteen seals on plate III of that publication, ‘The Seals of Whalley Abbey’. The remaining seven, also engraved by Basire, appear on plate XX, ‘The Seals of the Lords of Blackburnshire’. Whalley is near Blackburn in Lancashire. Ruskin gave this watercolour to show ‘what simple work he [Turner] could undertake’. He acquired it from Charles Stokes, himself a keen collector of Turner’s work, in 1852, apparently in exchange for a proof from the Liber Studiorum. |
