Oil paint on canvas
Oxfordshire
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Union Thames and Isis Dorchester Mead Oxfordshire
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
agriculture, gardening & fishing
animals: actions
animals: birds
animals: mammals
architecture
bank
bridge
bridges and viaducts
cow
Dorchester Mead
drinking
duck
eel trap
England
England, South East
England, Southern
objects
Oxfordshire
places
river
River Isis
River Thames
UK counties
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
water: inland
<p>Turner’s original title for this picture in exhibitions at his Gallery in 1808 and 1809 is commonly used today, although he showed it again in 1810 as ‘Dorchester Mead, Oxfordshire’. It depicts the confluence of the Thames, or ‘Isis’ as it was traditionally called in its passage through Oxford, and the Thame near Dorchester.</p><p>The Thame, hardly more than a stream, is in the foreground while the Thames is glimpsed beyond the wooden bridge on the right. Modest and direct, the picture also evokes the seventeenth-century painter Aelbert Cuyp in its lighting and pastoral imagery.</p><p><em>Gallery label, February 2010</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
4 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
4 September 2004 – 9 January 2005
2005-01-09
2004-09-04
Statens Museum for Kunst (Copenhagen, Denmark)
2004-09-04
Turner and Constable and their European Contemporaries
Loan-out
12 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
12 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
2009-08-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-12
Turner on the Thames
Collection based display
3 October 2021 – 8 May 2022
2022-05-08
3 October 2021 – 8 May 2022
2022-05-08
2021-10-03
Dordrechts Museum (Dordrecht, Netherlands)
2021-10-03
In the light of Cuyp, Aelbert Cuyp & Gainsborough, Constable, Turner
Loan-out
Union of the Thames and Isis (‘Dorchester Mead, Oxfordshire’)
support: 908 × 1213 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<p>Turner’s original title for this picture in exhibitions at his Gallery in 1808 and 1809 is commonly used today, although he showed it again in 1810 as ‘Dorchester Mead, Oxfordshire’.  It depicts the confluence of the Thames, or ‘Isis’ as it was traditionally called in its passage through Oxford, and the Thame near Dorchester.
<br/>
<br/>The Thame, hardly more than a stream, is in the foreground while the Thames is glimpsed beyond the wooden bridge on the right.  Modest and direct, the picture also evokes the seventeenth-century painter Aelbert Cuyp in its lighting and pastoral imagery.
<br/></p>

Display caption
2010-02-18T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>70. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-union-of-the-thames-and-isis-dorchester-mead-oxfordshire-n00462" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00462</span></a>]<b> Union of the Thames and Isis</b> Exh. 1808
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (462)
<br/>Canvas, 35 3/4 × 47 1/2 (91 × 121·5)
<br/>Insc. ‘JMW Turner RA’ lower left.</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (86, ‘Cattle in Water’ 4'0" × 3'0"), transferred to the Tate Gallery 1912.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Turner's gallery 1808; Turner's gallery 1809 (5); Tate Gallery 1931 (37); <i>The Thames in Art</i> Henley and Cheltenham, June–July 1967 (21); <i>Paintings of the Thames Valley</i> Reading Museum and Art Gallery, February–March 1968 (23); Hague 1978–9 (iv, repr. in colour).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Armstrong 1902, p. 224, as ‘Landscape, with Cattle in Water’; MacColl 1920, p. 3; Whitley 1928, p. 140; Davies 1946, p. 187; Clare 1951, pp. 41–2; Finberg 1961, pp. 144, 468 no. 115, 469 no. 132.</p>
<p></p>
<p>This is the first of the pictures mentioned in the long account of Turner's gallery in the <i>Review of Publications of Art</i> for 1808, probably by John Landseer. It is described as ‘a scene of Claude-like serenity, which is much to be admired for its exquisite colouring, <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/picturesque" title="Glossary definition for 'Picturesque'"><span>picturesque</span></a> groups of cattle, and the delicate management of the air tint which intervenes between the several distances. The negative grey by means of which this beautiful sweetness of gradation is accomplished, is with great art insensibly blended with, and in parts contrasted to, the positive and even rich colouring of the cows, ... the plumage of the ducks and other subjects on the foreground ... That continuity of line which so often contributes to the <i>grandeur</i> of Mr. Turner's pictures, is here, in the wooden bridge, and in the ridge of distant hill, made subservient to a milder sentiment ...’</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
agriculture, gardening & fishing animals: actions animals: birds animals: mammals architecture bank bridge bridges and viaducts cow Dorchester Mead drinking duck eel trap England England, South East England, Southern objects Oxfordshire places river River Isis River Thames UK counties UK countries and regions UK natural features water: inland