Oil paint on mahogany veneer mounted onto wooden panel
Surrey
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>
Sunset on River
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
bank
cloud
England
England, South East
England, Southern
landscape
places
river
River Thames
River Wey
sunset
Surrey
times of the day
UK counties
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
water: inland
weather
wooded
painting oil paint mahogany veneer mounted onto wooden panel
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
20 September 2014 – 11 January 2015
2015-01-11
20 September 2014 – 11 January 2015
2015-01-11
2014-09-20
Victoria and Albert Museum (London, UK)
http://www.vam.ac.uk
2014-09-20
John Constable: The making of a master
Loan-out
10 January 2020 – 31 October 2020
2020-10-31
10 January 2020 – 31 October 2020
2020-10-31
2020-01-10
Turner’s House (Twickenham, UK)
2020-01-10
Turner on the Thames: Five Paintings
Tate partnerships & programmes
Sunset on the River
support: 156 × 187 mm
frame: 328 × 360 × 59 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>[from]<b> Nos. 177–94: Small Thames Sketches <i>c.</i> 1807</b>
<br/>
<br/>THESE eighteen sketches of various sizes, painted on mahogany veneer, are all from the Turner Bequest. They were included in the 1854 Schedule as Nos. 184 to 200*, ‘18 fragments various sizes on Veneers—or thin <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/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panels</span></a>’; in the 1856 Schedule no. 200* [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-cattle-in-a-stream-under-a-bridge-n05534" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05534</span></a>], was inadvertently omitted. They were first numbered, laid down on panels, cleaned and exhibited in 1908 and 1910.
<br/>
<br/>The identifiable subjects of these sketches are all on the Thames or its tributary the Wey; several of the Guildford and Godalming views were identified in 1970 by Christopher Pinsent, including No. 186 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-tree-tops-and-sky-guildford-castle-evening-n02309" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02309</span></a>], formerly thought to show Windsor Castle. The same area, with the exception of Walton Bridges, is covered by <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawings</span></a> in the ‘Windsor, Eton’ sketchbook and the ‘Wey, Guildford’ sketchbook (XCVII and XCVIII).
<br/>
<br/>The small Thames sketches on panel, like these two sketchbooks, were dated <i>c.</i> 1807 by Finberg (1909, i, pp. 251, 253, and 1961, p. 137), a date that still seems most probable. However, in 1969 Gage divided the sketches into three groups and dated them all later. His first group, Nos. 179–80 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-windsor-castle-from-the-meadows-n02308" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02308</span></a>, <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-windsor-castle-from-the-river-n02306" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02306</span></a>], 183 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-thames-near-windsor-n02305" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02305</span></a>], 187–92 and 194 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-sunset-on-the-river-n02311" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02311</span></a>], he associates with the ‘Wey, Guildford’ sketchbook but dates <i>c.</i>
1809–10. His second group, Nos. 184 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-thames-near-walton-bridges-n02680" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02680</span></a>] and 185 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-walton-reach-n02681" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02681</span></a>], he dates <i>c.</i> 1811–12. His third group comprises Nos. 177 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-windsor-castle-from-salt-hill-n02312" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02312</span></a>], 178 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-windsor-from-lower-hope-n02678" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02678</span></a>], 181 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-eton-from-the-river-n02313" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02313</span></a>], 182 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-ford-n02679" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02679</span></a>] and 186 [<span>N02309</span>] and is dated by him to <i>c.</i> 1813 or even later, on account of a supposed similarity to the foliage of <i>Crossing the Brook</i>, exhibited in 1815 (No. 130 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-crossing-the-brook-n00497" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00497</span></a>]), and a greater accomplishment than the small oil sketches on <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/paper" title="Glossary definition for 'Paper'"><span>paper</span></a> of Devonshire subjects done in 1813 (Nos. 213–25). The Devonshire sketches, however, are not strictly comparable in either technique or general approach, and again it seems more likely that, as is argued in the case of the large Thames sketches on <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> (Nos. 160–176), the whole group represents a single campaign playing a crucial part in the rapid development of Turner's approach to nature in the exhibited pictures of 1807 and 1808. Indeed, in 1983 (exh. cat., Paris 1983–4, pp. 78–9 no. 20), Gage dated No. 186 to <i>c.</i> 1807 and conceded that Turner seemed to have ceased <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/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> the small Thames sketches on mahogany veneer by about 1811.
<br/>
<br/>These sketches were probably done out-of-doors, perhaps from a small boat as the younger Trimmer described, even though he talks of Turner using ‘a large canvas’ (see p. 116). In them Turner approaches nearest to what Constable termed ‘a natural painter’, but, unlike Constable, Turner always seems to have been interested in making a complete pictorial <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> even when he came closest to recording a direct experience of nature.
<br/></p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> MacColl 1920, pp. 36–8; Clark 1949, pp. 98–9; Finberg 1961, pp. 136–7; Herrmann 1963, p. 12; Kitson 1964, p. 77; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 23–4; Gage 1965, p. 75 n. 2; Gage 1969, p. 38; Reynolds 1969, p. 71; Ziff 1971, p. 125; Herrmann 1975, pp. 16–19, 228; Wilton 1979, pp. 111–18; Ziff 1980, p. 169; Youngblood 1982, pp. 21, 34 nn. 9 and 23; Gage in exh. cat., Paris 1983–4, pp. 78–9.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>194. </b>[<span>N02311</span>]<b> Sunset on the River</b> <i>c.</i> 1807
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (2311)
<br/>Mahogany, 6 1/16 × 7 5/16 (15·5 × 18·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (one of 184–200*); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Norwich and V. and A. 1969–70 (39, repr. p. 21); R.A. 1974–5 (137).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Davies 1946, p. 189 n. 19; Gage 1969, p. 38.</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
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
bank cloud England England, South East England, Southern landscape places river River Thames River Wey sunset Surrey times of the day UK counties UK countries and regions UK natural features water: inland weather wooded