- Museum number
- 1910,0212.277
- Description
-
Malham Cove, Yorkshire; cattle grazing in foreground centre and to left, two figures approaching from l, one mounted on, and the other leading an ass, fields to right with scattered trees, ark of rainbow spanning sky to right with mountains beyond in hazy mist. c.1810
Watercolour
- Production date
- 1810 (circa)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 279 millimetres
-
Width: 396 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Turner visited Malham Cove in the summer of 1808, following a visit to Tabley House in Cheshire, where he made studies for two large paintings for Lord de Tabley which were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1809. The drawing on which 1910-2-12-277 is based is on f.10 of the 'Tabley 1' sketchbook (TBCIII), and stylistically the watercolour appears to have been made soon afterwards. It may possibly be the work listed as '4 Gordale' in the 'Greenwich' sketchbook, among a list of ten watercolours for which Turner received payment from Walter Fawkes in February 1809, as there is no other work of this description now extant. Nothing is known of the watercolour's early provenance, however, and there is no evidence to support the link with Fawkes, apart from the similarity with other Yorkshire subjects acquired by Fawkes at this time.
Malham Cove is a limestone cliff in the Yorkshire Dales, northwest of Skipton. It lies just to the west of an even larger similar feature, Gordale Scar. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries they were well known to travellers as among the most dramatic features in the whole of the English landscape, and outstanding examples of the sublime. Above Malham Cove is a natural lake, Malham Tarn, and in Turner's day, it was not uncommon for water to flow from the lake over the top of the cliff, even in summer, when Turner saw it. Today, there is never more than a trickle from the base of the cove, and the flow is usually dry in summer.
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1910, London, Agnew's, Collection of the late Mr George Salting, no.217
1974 London, Royal Academy, 'Turner 1775-1851', no.123
1980, June-July, York City Art Gallery, 'Turner in Yorkshire', no.20
1981, BM, 'Turner and the Sublime', No. 28
1984 Jul-Dec, London, Tate Gallery, 'Turner's Richmondshire Tour'
2007 Mar-June, Beijing, Palace Museum, Britain meets the World
- Acquisition date
- 1910
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1910,0212.277