Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A. (London 1775-1851)
THE PROPERTY OF A LADY (LOTS 140, 142-145)
Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A. (London 1775-1851)

On the Medway

Details
Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A. (London 1775-1851)
On the Medway
pencil and watercolour
9 x 14¼ in. (23 x 26.2 cm.)
Provenance
John Edward Taylor; Christie's, London, 5 July 1912, lot 83 (240 gns to Agnew's).
Sir Ernest Debenham (1865-1952), London.
with Agnew's, London, 1947.
Sir William Worsley, Hovingham Hall.
with Agnew's, London, 1970, from whom purchased for the present collection.
Literature
A. Wilton, The Life and Works of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg and London, 1979, pp. 388-9, no. 765, illustrated.
Exhibited
Leeds, City Art Gallery, Early English Watercolours, 1958, no. 120.

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Lot Essay

Andrew Wilton relates this watercolour in general terms to The Medway of circa 1826, painted in connection with The Rivers of England series but not engraved (Tate, Turner Bequest CCVIII-P; Wilton, op. cit., p. 386, no. 749; see also E. Shanes, Turner's Rivers, Harbours and Coasts, London, 1981, pp. 32-3, illustrated in colour). Both include shipping and a rainbow, and in Shane's words, 'there is a very palpable sense of the warm, moist atmosphere after a storm'. He suggests as a date more probably in the mid 1820s but also sees the possibility that it could have been painted in connection with the England and Wales project of the early 1830s.

John Edward Taylor (1830-1905) was the son of the founder of the Manchester Guardian and was the sole owner of the newspaper by 1856. He was the most important collector of the work of J.M.W. Turner in the second half of the 19th Century, owning both the Red and Blue Rigi (which sold in these Rooms, 5 June 2006, lot 53 (£5,832,000)). He gave watercolours to the Whitworth Institute, Manchester, and the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, but it still took twelve days to sell his collection at Christie's in July 1912.

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