.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Turner made his first significant tour in 1791, apparently travelling alone to Bath, Bristol and Malmesbury just a few months after his sixteenth birthday to stay with his father’s old friend John Narraway (1744-1822). Both were former residents of Devon, but the latter was by then long established as a leather trader (or fell-monger) in Bristol, with a home in Broadmead (see Shanes 2016, op.cit., pp.40-1). Despite his teenage awkwardness, Turner evidently got on well with his host, who quickly built up a collection of more than ten of the aspiring artist’s watercolours. On a later visit, Narraway would provide Turner with a pony to facilitate his travels into Wales.
During his travels in 1791 Turner covered the pages of a soft-backed notebook, known as the ‘Bristol and Malmesbury’ sketchbook, now at Tate Britain (TB VI). As well as delighting in the wild grandeur of the rocky slopes of the Avon valley, he recorded ruined picturesque and contemporary architectural subjects alike, noting on the back of his country house scenes the names of the owners, presumably with a view to possible commissions. Even at this early stage he was alive to the importance of commercial potential and reward. Indeed in the spring of 1791 he had exhibited a view of Sweakley, near Uxbridge, the Seat of the Rev. Mr. Clarke (RA 1791; untraced, A. Wilton, op.cit., no. 14).
In exploring the outskirts of Bristol, above the Avon Gorge and Clifton Down, towards Westbury on Trym, Turner found a couple of substantial country houses whose distinctive features he diligently transcribed in his sketchbook, and subsequently developed as finished watercolours: Stoke House, the home of the widowed Lady Lippincott; and Cote House, then occupied by Captain Fowler (now at The Higgins, Bedford; see A. Wilton, op.cit., no. 21). John Gage has proposed that Narraway may have effected introductions to these dignitaries through his local connections (op.cit.,1987, p.40). This is perhaps confirmed by the deferential interaction within the group of figures in the present work, who can be identified (according to an inscription formerly evident on the back of the sheet) as Turner himself sketching away, seated humbly but practically on the ground next to Narraway’s son (also named John), while looking down on them is the heir to the property, Sir Henry Cann Lippincott (1776-1829), 2nd Baronet of Stoke Bishop. (Thornbury’s account of the two early watercolours erroneously and confusingly proposed that these figures appear in the view of Cote House; see Croft-Murray above).
Stoke House had been built in the Jacobean style by 1669 for Sir Robert Cann (c.1621-1685), who had been elected in 1662 as Mayor and then, some years later, M.P. for Bristol. In addition to his properties in Bristol, he owned investments in North America, Jamaica and Barbados, some of which inevitably exploited enslaved people from Africa. By the time of Turner’s visit in 1791, the building had undergone various modifications, though its façade remained largely unchanged, retaining the three ogee gables. Over the last two hundred years the striking contrast between the projecting porch and the rest of the south façade, as preserved in Turner’s watercolour, has been diminished by the addition of protruding banks of windows, their arched frames flattened. In more recent times Stoke House has become absorbed into the campus of Trinity College in Stoke Bishop, and is now a theological training centre for the Church of England.
In structuring his on-the-spot sketch from the south-east angle, and following that closely here in the finished composition, Turner was repeating a formula he had successfully devised a few years earlier for a view of St Mary the Virgin at Wanstead (Wanstead Old Church), 1789; Shanes 2016, p.19, fig.20. In both watercolours the low sunlight comes from the left to model and define the central tower, throwing the sides of the building into shadow, while creating a brilliant intensity to the central area of the design. Furthermore, the exaggerated perspective Turner gained from the low viewpoint he adopted in the image adds a certain drama to the representation of the architecture. He had also taken pains to observe and sketch the complex decorative motifs carved around the entrance, and was able to recreate in the watercolour an approximation of the helical columns (resembling a helix or spiralling barley-sugar) on either side of the doorway. Other notes included in the pencil sketch of Stoke House sought to differentiate the types of trees surrounding the house, one of which was a ‘Yew’.
Writing about the watercolours resulting from the tour to the West Country, Edward Croft-Murray noted that, although Turner was evidently still working under the influence of eighteenth-century topographers, such as Thomas Malton (c.1751-1804), ‘even at this date, there are signs of Turner’s great feeling for brilliancy of colour, so remarkable when compared with the subdued tints used by most of his contemporaries.’
During his travels in 1791 Turner covered the pages of a soft-backed notebook, known as the ‘Bristol and Malmesbury’ sketchbook, now at Tate Britain (TB VI). As well as delighting in the wild grandeur of the rocky slopes of the Avon valley, he recorded ruined picturesque and contemporary architectural subjects alike, noting on the back of his country house scenes the names of the owners, presumably with a view to possible commissions. Even at this early stage he was alive to the importance of commercial potential and reward. Indeed in the spring of 1791 he had exhibited a view of Sweakley, near Uxbridge, the Seat of the Rev. Mr. Clarke (RA 1791; untraced, A. Wilton, op.cit., no. 14).
In exploring the outskirts of Bristol, above the Avon Gorge and Clifton Down, towards Westbury on Trym, Turner found a couple of substantial country houses whose distinctive features he diligently transcribed in his sketchbook, and subsequently developed as finished watercolours: Stoke House, the home of the widowed Lady Lippincott; and Cote House, then occupied by Captain Fowler (now at The Higgins, Bedford; see A. Wilton, op.cit., no. 21). John Gage has proposed that Narraway may have effected introductions to these dignitaries through his local connections (op.cit.,1987, p.40). This is perhaps confirmed by the deferential interaction within the group of figures in the present work, who can be identified (according to an inscription formerly evident on the back of the sheet) as Turner himself sketching away, seated humbly but practically on the ground next to Narraway’s son (also named John), while looking down on them is the heir to the property, Sir Henry Cann Lippincott (1776-1829), 2nd Baronet of Stoke Bishop. (Thornbury’s account of the two early watercolours erroneously and confusingly proposed that these figures appear in the view of Cote House; see Croft-Murray above).
Stoke House had been built in the Jacobean style by 1669 for Sir Robert Cann (c.1621-1685), who had been elected in 1662 as Mayor and then, some years later, M.P. for Bristol. In addition to his properties in Bristol, he owned investments in North America, Jamaica and Barbados, some of which inevitably exploited enslaved people from Africa. By the time of Turner’s visit in 1791, the building had undergone various modifications, though its façade remained largely unchanged, retaining the three ogee gables. Over the last two hundred years the striking contrast between the projecting porch and the rest of the south façade, as preserved in Turner’s watercolour, has been diminished by the addition of protruding banks of windows, their arched frames flattened. In more recent times Stoke House has become absorbed into the campus of Trinity College in Stoke Bishop, and is now a theological training centre for the Church of England.
In structuring his on-the-spot sketch from the south-east angle, and following that closely here in the finished composition, Turner was repeating a formula he had successfully devised a few years earlier for a view of St Mary the Virgin at Wanstead (Wanstead Old Church), 1789; Shanes 2016, p.19, fig.20. In both watercolours the low sunlight comes from the left to model and define the central tower, throwing the sides of the building into shadow, while creating a brilliant intensity to the central area of the design. Furthermore, the exaggerated perspective Turner gained from the low viewpoint he adopted in the image adds a certain drama to the representation of the architecture. He had also taken pains to observe and sketch the complex decorative motifs carved around the entrance, and was able to recreate in the watercolour an approximation of the helical columns (resembling a helix or spiralling barley-sugar) on either side of the doorway. Other notes included in the pencil sketch of Stoke House sought to differentiate the types of trees surrounding the house, one of which was a ‘Yew’.
Writing about the watercolours resulting from the tour to the West Country, Edward Croft-Murray noted that, although Turner was evidently still working under the influence of eighteenth-century topographers, such as Thomas Malton (c.1751-1804), ‘even at this date, there are signs of Turner’s great feeling for brilliancy of colour, so remarkable when compared with the subdued tints used by most of his contemporaries.’