Joseph Mallord William Turner Norham Castle on the Tweed c.1806-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Norham Castle on the Tweed c.1806-7
Norham Castle on the Tweed circa 1806–7
Turner Bequest CXVIII D
Watercolour on off-white wove writing paper, 192 x 274 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
National Gallery, London, various dates to at least 1904 (480).
Loan of Turner Watercolours from the British Museum, Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London, May–June/July 1951 (no catalogue).
[Display of watercolours from the Turner Bequest], Tate Gallery, London, ending circa March 1965 (no catalogue).
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (642, as 'Norham Castle').
Turner at the Bankside Gallery: Drawings & Water-colours of British River Scenes from the British Museum, Bankside Gallery, London, November–December 1980 (39, reproduced).
J.M.W. Turner: Akvareller Målningar Grafik, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, February–May 1984 (20).
Turner's 'Drawing Book': The Liber Studiorum, Tate Gallery, London, February–June 1996 (57i, reproduced).
Turner's Norham Castle, Sunrise: From Incomprehension to Icon, Tate Gallery, London, November 2006–February 2007 (no catalogue).
Etching and mezzotint by J.M.W. Turner and Charles Turner, 'Norham Castle on The Tweed.', published J.M.W. Turner, 1 January 1816
Turner's Liber Studiorum. Photographs from the Thirty Original Drawings by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. in the South Kensington Museum. Published under the Authority of the Department of Science and Art, London and Manchester 1861, reproduced pl.[9].
John Burnet and Peter Cunningham, Turner and his Works: Illustrated with Examples from his Pictures, and Critical Remarks on his Principles of Painting, 2nd ed., revised by Henry Murray, London 1859, pp.91, 121 no.10.
Walter Thornbury, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Founded on Letters and Papers Furnished by his Friends and Fellow-Academicians, London 1862 [1861], vol.II, p.388 no.20.
[J.E. Taylor and Henry Vaughan], Exhibition Illustrative of Turner's Liber Studiorum, Containing Choice Impressions of the First States, Etchings, Touched Proofs, together with the Unpublished Plates, and a Few Original Drawings for the Work, exhibition catalogue, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London 1872, p.39 under no.57.
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, Turner's Liber Studiorum, A Description and a Catalogue, London 1878, p.116 under no.57.
Rev. Stopford [Augustus] Brooke, Notes on the Liber Studiorum of J.M.W. Turner, R.A., revised ed., London 1885, pp.[191]–4.
Walter Thornbury, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Founded on Letters and Papers Furnished by his Friends and Fellow-Academicians: A New Edition, London 1897, p.584 no.20.
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn eds., Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, pp.121, 632 no.480.
W[illiam] L[ionel] Wyllie, J.M.W. Turner, London 1905, p.88, reproduced opposite.
W[illiam] G[eorge] Rawlinson, Turner's Liber Studiorum, A Description and a Catalogue. Second Edition, Revised Throughout, London 1906, p.138 under no.57.
J[ohn] E[rnest] Phythian, Turner, London [1910], p.92, reproduced opposite (reversed).
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.321, CXVIII D.
Alexander J. Finberg, The History of Turner's Liber Studiorum with a New Catalogue Raisonné, London 1924, reproduced p.[226], p.227 under no.57.
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.325.
Gillian Forrester, Turner's 'Drawing Book': The Liber Studiorum, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1996, pp.14, 15, 24 note 78, p.118 no.57i, reproduced, p.161.
David Hill, Turner in the North: A Tour through Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Durham, Northumberland, the Scottish Borders, the Lake District, Lancashire and Lincolnshire in the Year 1797, New Haven and London 1996, pp.88 note 39, 191.
Norham lies on the Tweed in Northumberland, six miles inland from Berwick-upon-Tweed; at this point, the river marks the border between England and (to the left of the present composition) Scotland. The castle dates from the late twelfth century. Three other Liber Studiorum designs were based on drawings from the same tour: Holy Island Cathedral, Dunstanborough Castle and The Crypt of Kirkstall Abbey (see Tate D08115, D08118, D08142; Turner Bequest CXVI N, Q, CXVII O).
The Liber design was ultimately derived from a pencil study in the North of England sketchbook (Tate D00966; Turner Bequest XXXIV 57), which had been developed through two pencil and watercolour studies (Tate D02343, D02344; Turner Bequest L B, C) towards two similar finished watercolours, Norham Castle on the Tweed, Summer's Morn, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798 (private collection)1 and Norham Castle, Sunrise, of about the same date (Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford).2
For the Liber – as compared with the four watercolour versions – Turner considerably rearranged and tightened the composition, excluding about a sixth of the landscape at each side, halving the height of the space allowed for the river in the foreground, reducing the gap between the small building on the left and the castle keep, enlarging the cows drinking in the foreground, and generally giving the scene a more intimate, homely air (a similar, though rather more conspicuous, focusing process can be seen in the case of Ships in a Breeze: see Tate D08114; Turner Bequest CXVI M). Although it has been suggested that the 'Pastoral' categorisation of the design is inappropriate,3 it was perhaps this subtle domestication in mood (described by Ruskin as 'the contrast between the pure rustic life of our own day, and the pride and terror of the past'4) that caused the composition to be so labelled, rather than as 'EP' (i.e. probably 'Elevated Pastoral'; see general Liber introduction). The superficially similar River Wye, in the latter category (see Tate D08152; Turner Bequest CXVII X), serves as both a comparison and a contrast.
The composition is recorded, as '20 Norham', in a list of published and unpublished 'Pastoral' subjects in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12160; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 25a).5
The Liber Studiorum etching and mezzotint engraving, etched by Turner and engraved by Charles Turner, bears the publication date 1 January 1816 and was issued to subscribers as 'Norham Castle on The Tweed. | the Drawing in the Possession of the late Lord Lascells' in part 12 (Rawlinson/Finberg nos.57–61;6 see also Tate D08159–D08162; Turner Bequest CXVIII F, H, Vaughan Bequest CXVIII E, G). Tate holds impressions of the preliminary outline etching (Tate A01119) and the published engraving (A01120). It is one of fourteen published Liber Studiorum subjects in Turner's 'Pastoral' category (see also Tate D08102, D08111, D08116, D08121, D08127, D08136, D08140, D08145, D08151, D08167; Turner Bequest CXVI A, J, O, T, Z, CXVII I, M, Q, W, CXVIII M; and Tate N02941).
Turner evidently found Norham 'inspirational',7 returning briefly to sketch on Scottish tours in 1801 and 1831, and producing further finished watercolours: one, commissioned by Walter Fawkes around 1822 as an informal illustration to Sir Walter Scott (private collection)8 is a compressed, upright interpretation flooded with afternoon light; another, commissioned for engraving in an 1834 edition of Scott, shows fishermen instead of cows, and the moon rising behind the castle (private collection).9 In between came the design (Tate D18148; Turner Bequest CCVIII O)10 engraved in 1824 for the Rivers of England, which is a variant of the Liber design, but distinguished most immediately by its intense, jewel-like colouring.
Finally, towards the end of his career, Turner used the Liber composition for one of a series of oil paintings reinterpreting the series, perhaps prompted by his limited reprinting of the engravings in 1845 (see general Liber introduction for details); the painting, Norham Castle, Sunrise, is one of the most celebrated late, unfinished works in the Turner Bequest (Tate N01981).11
Between 1858 and 1865, Thomas Lupton etched and engraved a facsimile of the print as one of an unpublished series for the London dealer Colnaghi12 (see general Liber introduction).
Wilton 1979, p.324 no.225.
Ibid., pp.324–5 no.226.
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.173.
Cook and Wedderburn XIII 1904, p.121.
Forrester 1996, p.161 (transcribed).
Hill 1997, p.88(–[93]); see also 'Retrospect: Norham Castle 1798–1840', in Butlin, Wilton and Gage 1974, pp.172–4.
Wilton 1979, p.424 no.1052.
Ibid., p.430 no.1099.
Ibid., p.385 no.736, reproduced p.161 pl.175 (colour).
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.301–2 no.512, pl.514 (colour).
Rawlinson 1878, p.197; 1906, p.232; Finberg 1924, p.228.
The sheet is not watermarked, but its batch has been identified as 'J Whatman | 1801'.1 The paper may have been washed initially. Washes were followed by brushwork and scratching-out. The sky was washed onto wet paper. A heavy, glossy wash emphasises the darkest cow in the foreground, and the boat balancing it compositionally on the left. The overall cool brown colour, with warm brown details, is made up of Indian red, umber and sepia pigments.2 As has been observed,3 the series of engraver's proofs leading to the first state of the subsequent engraving show a progressive dramatisation of the morning sky culminating in bright rays, not represented in the drawing, emanating from behind the central tower.
Forrester 1996, p.118 (analysis by Peter Bower, acknowledged p.8); Peter Bower, Turner's Later Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1820–1851, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.41 note 1.
Joyce Townsend, circa 1995, Tate conservation files.
Finberg 1924, p.228; Forrester 1996, p.118.
Inscribed in pencil '<D 57>' centre right, and 'D.08158' bottom right
Stamped in black '[crown] | N•G | CXVIII – D' bottom left
Matthew Imms, 'Norham Castle on the Tweed c.1806–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner', catalogue entry, August 2008, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-norham-castle-on-the-tweed-r1131761, accessed 19 January 2022.