Joseph Mallord William Turner RA, (London 1775-1851)

A mill in north Wales

A mill in north Wales
pencil and watercolour on paper
22.9 x 33cm (9 x 13in).

Provenance
With Agnew's, London
Sale, Christie's, London, 8 June 2000, lot 131, where purchased by the present owner

Although in the past this work was thought to represent a view in Westmorland (possibly on the basis of watercolours such as Ambleside Mill, Westmorland which Turner exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798, see A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, 1979, p. 326, no. 237) Andrew Wilton has identified it as being in north Wales.

Turner spent nearly two months in north Wales in the summer of 1798 on his first visit to the area. It must have held a certain significance for him as the homeland of Richard Wilson, an artist whom he greatly admired. He started out from Bristol where he stayed with family friends the Narraways; John Narraway, a glue-maker, had introduced Turner to the magnificence of the Avon Gorge some years earlier and Turner returned to stay with them on several occasions. They noted that 'He was singular and very silent, seemed exclusively devoted to his drawing, would not go into society' (Wilton, op. cit., p.12). It is hardly surprising, then, to read in Joseph Farrington's diary for 26 September 1798 that Turner had called on him after touring north and south Wales for 7 weeks on horseback and that he had done so completely alone.