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>
Willows beside a Stream
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
forest
landscape
natural phenomena
reflection
stream
water: inland
willow
<p>This is one of several sketches on canvas Turner made of the river Thames. He sometimes worked outdoors on from his boat, which he kept in Richmond. He painted on a roll of prepared canvas, which he presumably tacked in sections over a frame or board. Turner painted each sketch to a size of about 90cm x 1.2m, which he regularly used for pictures he exhibited. This suggests that these sketches were potentially the beginnings of pictures that could be refined later in his studio.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
18 June 2001 – 14 July 2002
2002-07-14
18 June 2001 – 14 July 2002
2002-07-14
2001-06-18
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-06-18
From Studio to Gallery: Sketches in the Turner Bequest
Collection based display
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
1 October 2007 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
1 October 2007 – 6 January 2008
2008-01-06
2007-10-01
National Gallery of Art (Washington DC, USA)
10 February 2008 – 18 May 2008
2008-05-18
2008-02-10
Dallas Museum of Art (Dallas, USA)
http://www.DallasMuseumofArt.org
23 June 2008 – 21 September 2008
2008-09-21
2008-06-23
Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, USA)
http://www.metmuseum.org
2007-10-01
JMW Turner
Tate partnerships & programmes
5 February 2013 – 12 May 2013
2013-05-12
5 February 2013 – 12 May 2013
2013-05-12
2013-02-05
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, Spain)
5 February 2013 – 12 May 2013
2013-05-12
2013-02-05
Fundación Caja (Casa de las Alhajas) (Madrid, Spain)
2013-02-05
Open-Air Painting
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
11 July 2016 – 15 March 2020
2020-03-15
11 July 2016 – 15 March 2020
2020-03-15
2016-07-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2016-07-11
Clore 103 In the Studio
Collection based display
6 April 2020 – 27 November 2022
2022-11-27
6 April 2019
2019-04-06
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-04-06
Clore 102
Collection based display
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
19 October 2024 – 23 February 2025
2025-02-23
19 October 2024 – 23 February 2025
2025-02-23
2024-10-19
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery (Norwich, UK)
http://www.museums.norfolk.gov.uk
2024-10-19
Bridging time: JMW Turner, landscape, and a changing world
Loan-out
Willows beside a Stream
support: 860 × 1162 mm
frame: 1130 × 1427 × 94 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
<div class="text">
<p>This is one of several sketches on canvas Turner made of the river Thames. He sometimes worked outdoors on from his boat, which he kept in Richmond. He painted on a roll of prepared canvas, which he presumably tacked in sections over a frame or board. Turner painted each sketch to a size of about 90cm x 1.2m, which he regularly used for pictures he exhibited. This suggests that these sketches were potentially the beginnings of pictures that could be refined later in his studio.  </p>
</div>

Display caption
2020-07-01T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>172. </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-willows-beside-a-stream-n02706" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02706</span></a>]<b> Willows beside a Stream</b> <i>c.</i>
1806–7
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (2706)
<br/>Canvas, 33 3/4 × 45 3/4 (86 × 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> Tate Gallery 1931 (33); Amsterdam 1936 (157); Venice 1938 (12, repr. pl. 6); Prague, Bratislava (146) and Vienna (53) 1969; Norwich and V. and A. 1969–70 (42, repr. p. 23); Tokyo and Kyoto 1970–71 (32, repr.); Lisbon 1973 (3, repr. in colour); R.A. 1974–5 (146); Paris 1983–4 (19, repr. in colour).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Rothenstein and Butlin 1964, p. 24, colour pl. iii; Gage 1969, p. 37; Ziff 1971, p. 125; Herrmann 1975, pp. 19, 229, p. 53.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Comparable with 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/g/graphite" title="Glossary definition for 'Graphite'"><span>pencil</span></a> <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>drawing</span></a> of trees on page 35 of the ‘Thames, from Reading to Walton’ sketchbook of <i>c.</i> 1806 (XCV-35). The flurry of activity in the left foreground may represent dogs attacking a stag, a reminiscence of one of Rubens' <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>paintings</span></a> of boar hunts. This <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> may have been in Turner's mind when he did the drawing for the unpublished <i>Liber Studiorum</i> plate ‘Pan and Syrinx’, R.80 (British Museum; repr. Finberg 1924, p. 320).</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 canvas 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 painting 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 drawings 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 [<span>N02706</span>]; 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 <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> 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 <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/print" title="Glossary definition for 'Print'"><span>prints</span></a> 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 [<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>]); 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.</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
forest landscape natural phenomena reflection stream water: inland willow