Oil paint on canvas
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>
House beside River with Trees and Sheep
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
animals: mammals
architecture
bank
boat, punt
house
landscape
natural phenomena
reflection
residential
river
sheep
society
transport: water
water: inland
wooded
<p>Turner's sketching expedition along the Thames and Wey in 1805 produced a group of larger studies in oil, on unstretched canvas prepared with an off-white ground. The canvas was carried rolled, and tacked over a frame or board while he worked. Using a thick, soft brush, and very dilute pigments he painted a set of landscape studies on his standard, smaller exhibition size. While carefully resolved compositionally, these seem to be experiments in beginning pictures out of doors, suggesting that Turner was attempting to bring a greater naturalism into his appreciation of English landscape.</p><p><em>Gallery label, August 2004</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
10 April 2006 – 12 March 2007
2007-03-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-04-10
Impressions and Ideas Turner's Oil Sketches and Studies
Collection based display
8 February 2013 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
8 February 2013 – 19 May 2013
2013-05-19
2013-02-08
Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia)
http://www.artgallery.sa.gov.au
4 June 2013 – 8 September 2013
2013-09-08
2013-06-04
National Gallery of Australia (Canberra, Australia)
8 October 2013 – 18 December 2013
2013-12-18
2013-10-08
Toyko Metropolitan Art Museum (Toyko, Japan)
1 January 2014 – 13 April 2014
2014-04-13
2014-01-01
Kobe City Museum (Kobe, Japan)
2013-02-08
J.M.W. Turner: Makings of a Master
Loan-out
28 October 2023 – 10 March 2024
2024-03-10
28 October 2023 – 10 March 2024
2024-03-10
2023-10-28
Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus (Munich, Germany)
2023-10-28
Turner at Lenbachhaus Munich
Loan-out
House beside the River, with Trees and Sheep
support: 905 × 1165 mm
frame: 1140 × 1460 × 140 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 sketching expedition along the Thames and Wey in 1805 produced a group of larger  studies in oil, on unstretched <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> prepared with an off-white ground. The canvas was carried rolled, and tacked over a frame or board while he worked. Using a thick, soft brush, and very dilute pigments he painted a set of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscape</span></a> studies on his  standard, smaller exhibition size. While carefully resolved compositionally, these seem to be  experiments in beginning pictures out of doors, suggesting that Turner was attempting to bring  a greater <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/n/naturalism" title="Glossary definition for 'Naturalism'"><span>naturalism</span></a> into his appreciation of English landscape.
</p><p>
</p>
Display caption
2004-08-27T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>166. </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-house-beside-the-river-with-trees-and-sheep-n02694" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02694</span></a>]<b> House beside the River, with Trees and Sheep</b>
<i>c.</i> 1806–7
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (2694)
<br/>Canvas, 35 5/8 × 45 7/4 (90·5 × 116·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (? one of 219–35); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Amsterdam 1936 (158); Amsterdam, Berne, Paris, Brussels, Liege (12, repr.). Venice and Rome (13, repr.) 1947–8.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Rothenstein 1949, p. 8, colour pl. 4; Herrmann 1963, p. 12, colour pl. 5; Kitson 1964, p. 77, repr. p. 42; Gage 1969, p. 38.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Christopher Pinsent has suggested that this may be a view of St. Catherine's Ferry on the River Wey (letter of 2 March 1970). Gage dates this to after 1811 or 1812 on the basis of its ‘very developed approach to working from nature in oils’ and a not very convincing comparison to the trees in Turner's Italianate <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a> after 1811 such as <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>]). In mood and to a certain extent in <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> one might better compare it with the <i>View of Pope's Villa</i>
exhibited in 1808 (No. 72).</p>
<p></p>
<p>[from]<b> Nos. 160–76: Large Thames Sketches <i>c.</i> 1806–7</b>
<br/>
<br/>THIS group of seventeen 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> from the Turner bequest, though carried to different degree of finish, are all similar in technique, being lightly painted over a dry chalky ground, and are all roughly similar in size save for <i>Sketch for ‘Harvest Dinner, Kingston Bank’</i>, which measures only 24 × 36 in. (No. 160 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-sketch-for-harvest-dinner-kingston-bank-n02696" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02696</span></a>]). This last was used for the <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> exhibited at Turner's gallery in 1809 and again in 1810 (No. 90 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-harvest-dinner-kingston-bank-n00491" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00491</span></a>]). Others are more loosely related to finished oil paintings exhibited in 1808, 1809 and 1810. A number of them are also related to <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 ‘Thames from Reading to Walton’ sketchbook, datable <i>c.</i> 1806 (XCV; pp. 22–3 are sketches for the pictures of Walton Bridges, paid for early in 1807, see Nos. 60 and 63); <i>c.f.</i> for example pp. 31 and 37 with No. 173 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-washing-sheep-n02699" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02699</span></a>], and p. 35 with No. 172 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-willows-beside-a-stream-n02706" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02706</span></a>]; there is a different view of Goring Church, the subject of No. 161 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-goring-mill-and-church-n02704" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02704</span></a>], on p. 19. The composition of one example, <i>Trees beside a River, with a Bridge in the Middle Distance</i> (No. 169 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-trees-beside-the-river-with-bridge-in-the-middle-distance-n02692" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02692</span></a>]), is very close to a drawing in the rather earlier ‘Studies for Pictures; Isleworth’ sketchbook, sandwiched between lists of <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/classicism" title="Glossary definition for 'Classicism'"><span>classical</span></a> and Biblical subjects (XC-55 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>verso</span></a> and 56): for the evidence for dating this sketchbook <i>c.</i> 1804–5 see Nos. 149 [<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-thames-t03870" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03870</span></a>] and 169 [<span>N02692</span>].
<br/>
<br/>There is reason to suppose that, contrary to Turner's usual practice, some if not all of these sketches were at least begun out-of-doors. Thornbury prints some reminiscences of the son of Turner's ‘oldest friend the Rev. Mr. Trimmer’, who had been out fishing with Turner when a child. ‘He had a boat at Richmond ... From his boat he painted on a large canvas direct from Nature. Till you have seen these sketches, you know nothing of Turner's powers. There are about two score of these large subjects, rolled up, and now national property ... There is a red sunset (simply the sky) among the rolls’. The last, probably the sadly darkened <i>Sunset</i> (No. 525 [<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-n01876" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01876</span></a>]), is different in character from the works under discussion and is probably later, but the folded and battered condition of many of the Thames sketches such as Nos. 171[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-river-scene-with-weir-in-middle-distance-n02703" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02703</span></a>] and 173 [<span>N02699</span>] supports the identification with the works mentioned by Trimmer, as does the fact that the sketches seem to have been unstretched when they came to be relined early this century; indeed, some if not all may never have been stretched, No. 167 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-weir-and-cattle-n02705" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02705</span></a>] for instance showing none of the usual pulling at the edges from the nails attaching a canvas to a stretcher. As in the case of two later groups of sketches on canvas, those painted in the Isle of Wight in 1827 (Nos. 260–268 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-sketch-for-east-cowes-castle-the-regatta-beating-to-windward-no-1-n01995" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01995</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-study-of-sea-and-sky-isle-of-wight-n02001" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02001</span></a>]) and those done in Rome 1828–9 (Nos. 302–317), Turner may have painted on rolls of canvas, working them over a frame to use different areas as required. If these sketches were always on loose canvases they may have been the ‘Roll of 17 separate Canvasses’, nos. 219 to 235 in the inventory of the Turner Bequest. All but one were first numbered, restored and put on public exhibition in 1910; No. 165 [<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-glimpsed-between-trees-possibly-at-kew-bridge-n05519" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05519</span></a>], which is in considerably worse condition, was not even numbered until 1944.
<br/>
<br/>Though Turner did not complete his own cottage at Twickenham, across the river from Richmond, until 1813, he already had a second home at Isleworth, not that much further from Richmond, by 23 May 1805 (see Youngblood <i>op. cit.</i>, p. 34 n. 9), and at Upper Mall, Hammersmith probably from late 1806 until 1811, and he could well have had a boat at Richmond during all this period. John Gage suggested in 1969 that this group of sketches was executed over a number of years from about 1807 to as late as <i>Crossing the Brook</i>, exhibited in 1815 (No. 130 [<span>N00497</span>]); however in 1983 he accepted our dating for two of the sketches made on the Thames above London although dating one of the Thames estuary sketches (No. 176, <i>q.v </i>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-coast-scene-with-fishermen-and-boats-n02698" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02698</span></a>].) to <i>c.</i> 1809. It is difficult to be sure of Turner's methods but the evidence of the sketchbooks and also of the groups of oil sketches that he is known to have painted on rolls of canvas, at Cowes in 1827 (Nos. 260–8 [<span>N01995</span>-<span>N02001</span>]) and in and around Rome in 1828 (Nos. 302–17) suggest that he was more likely to execute a whole run of sketches, varying in execution and degree of finish to a considerable extent, in a short time than to spread such series over periods of years. It seems likely therefore that Turner only used this rather unusual size and technique for this sort of sketch as a limited experiment.
<br/></p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 169; 1877, pp. 120–21; MacColl 1920, pp. 38–40; Herrmann 1963, p. 12; Kitson 1964, pp. 77–8; Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, pp. 24–6; Gage 1969, pp. 37–8; Reynolds 1969, p. 71; Ziff 1971, p. 125; Herrmann 1975, pp. 229; Ziff 1980, p. 169; Youngblood, 1982, pp. 21, 34 nn. 9 and 23; Gage in exh. cat., Paris 1983–4, pp. 77–9.</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
animals: mammals architecture bank boat, punt house landscape natural phenomena reflection residential river sheep society transport: water water: inland wooded