drawing

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Object Type
Museum number: 1958,0712.402
Description: St Erasmus in Bishop Islip's Chapel, Westminster Abbey; looking down side-aisle towards crossing and transepts, side altars on right and steps leading to screen wall in left foreground, man holding hat behind back in centre, other figures in distance. 1796 Watercolour and graphite
Producer name
School/style
Production date: 1796
Materials
Technique
Dimensions: Height: 546 millimetres; Width: 398 millimetres
$Inscriptions
Curator's comments: The inscription provides confirmation of Turner's birthday, often muddled in accounts (see E.Joll et al. (eds), 'The Oxford Companion to JMW Turner' (2001) pp.25-6. Sloan 1998 If Lloyd had any doubts that his version of Tintern Abbey was the one exhibited at the Royal Academy by Turner in 1795, he could have entertained no such doubts that this view of the interior of Westminster Abbey was the one shown the following year. This was also the year the 21-year-old artist exhibited his first oil painting at the Royal Academy, and he seems to point to his own prodigious genius in a self-conscious, if not modest manner in the quasi-memorial inscription on the tomb in the foreground. Several writers on Turner have since endorsed his own opinion of his abilities by using this work to illustrate not only his early mature mastery of architectural draughtsmanship and the watercolour medium, but also the strength of his unique vision, even genius, which has achieved such a monumental effect in a relatively small-scale work on paper.¹ The artist's 'own' monument serves to mark the viewpoint as from the eye level of a visitor standing in the north ambulatory of the abbey, a shaft of light falling on Bishop Islip's double-tiered, screened chapel. The doorway further to the right leads to a vestibule containing the Chapel of St Erasmus, which Bishop Islip had moved twice: first when he laid the foundation of Henry VII's Chapel where the saint's once stood, and, secondly, when his own chapel was built over the spot to which he had transferred it.² This explains the very precise wording of the title Turner gave this water-colour, which has caused much confusion in the past. St Erasmus is the patron saint of sailors, and the subject was a fortuitous choice for a young artist who was not only exhibiting his first marine painting but was to make the sea such a significant aspect of his future work. The spectator's eye is drawn to the visitor in black and others beyond, and to the realisation that they are dwarfed by towering pillars and arches, shafts of light falling blue and clear from the upper windows in the crossing and the clerestory, out of our sight. The natural gloom of the abbey on a dull day is transformed into glowing golden stone. All the lessons Turner learnt from his early study of perspective, the prints of G. B. Piranesi and the water-colours of Louis Ducros have been put to use: pentimenti around the steps to the left show that he reduced their horizontal intrusion into the composition, and he has manipulated light and shade to minimise and strip the surfaces of the distracting accretions of hundreds of years, leaving the pure lines of the architecture to emphasise the upward thrust and glorious soaring space. 1. See Hill 1984, p. 26; Wilton 1987, p. 8; Gage 1987, pp. 101-2; Egerton 1995, p. 48. 2. Macmichael, pp. 55-9.
Bibliographic references: Wilton 1979 / The life and work of J M W Turner (138); Stainton 1985 / British Landscape Watercolours 1600-1860 (85); Sloan 1998 / J M W Turner: Watercolours from the R W Lloyd Bequest to the British Museum (4)
Location: Not on display
Exhibition history: 1796, RA, no.395 1871, BFAC, no.89 1884, BFAC, no.166(?) 1899, Guildhall, (83: 'Westminster') 1919, BFAC, no.38 1920, Agnew's, no.13 1951-2, Dec-Mar, London RA, The first hundred years of the RA, no. 505 1959, Feb, BM, 'The R.W.Lloyd Bequest', no cat. 1966 Feb, BM, 'Turner watercolours from the Lloyd Bequest', no.2 1969 Feb, BM, 'Turner watercolours from the Lloyd Bequest', no.2 1975 BM, Turner in the BM, no.9 1985, BM, British Landscape Watercolours 1600-1860, no.85 1998 May-Sept., BM, J.M.W.Turner: Lloyd Bequest, no.4
Subjects: monastery/convent; interior
Associated places: Topographic representation of: London
Acquisition name
Previous owner: Previous owner/ex-collection: Edward, Viscount Lascelles (Purchased 17.v.1797, 3 guineas. By descent to Lord Harewood.); Previous owner/ex-collection: Henry George Charles Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood (By descent; his sale, Christie's 1.v.1858/36, bt Colnaghi, £109); Previous owner/ex-collection: John Dillon (His sale Christie's 17.iv.1869/47, bt Agnew's £178 10s.); Previous owner/ex-collection: John Heugh (Bt from Agnew's by John Heugh of Gaunt's House, Dorset, 19 April 1869; his sale Christie's 17.iii.1877/35, bt Vokins, £231); Previous owner/ex-collection: J Morris (By 1884); Previous owner/ex-collection: D S Thompson (1912. Sale Christie's 1917, bt Boswell.); Previous owner/ex-collection: Boswell (Purchased from Boswell by Agnew's, 22 November 1917, £250, bt Lloyd 4 December 1917, £400 (stock 8701).)
Acquisition date: 1958
Acquisition notes: UNDER THE TERMS OF THE BEQUEST, NONE OF THE PRINTS OR DRAWINGS BEQUEATHED BY R. W. LLOYD MAY BE LENT OUTSIDE THE BRITISH MUSEUM (Registration Numbers 1958,0712.318 to 3149).
Department: Prints and Drawings
Registration number: 1958,0712.402

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