William Turner of Oxford

KT488 Signed and inscribed on the old backing board attached to reverse: View of Shipton on Charwell [sic]-Evening.\W. Turner./Oxfd., watercolour over traces of pencil 25.6 x 41 cm.; 10 x 16 inches Provenance W/S Fine Art Ltd., ‘Watercolours and Drawings’, June 2005, no. 47; Private collection U.K. until 2021 This view shows the manor house and part of the estate of the artist’s uncle, William Turner, and the church of Holy Cross, amongst the trees to the right of the house. The artist built the church, in fourteenth -century style, at the expense of his uncle. It is thus an intensely personal work in which the artist depicts his home and the only building he designed. William Turner Senior had supported the artistic training of his nephew after his father died. In 1804 he bought the estate of Shipton-on-Cherwell with its manor house and park, as seen in the present watercolour. In 1809 the young artist recorded his address as Shipton (Martin Hardie, ‘William Turner of Oxford’, The Old Water-Colour Society’s Club, IX, 1932, p. 2). Turner first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807 and in January 1808 he became the youngest associate of the Society of Painters in Water Colours and was elected a full member in November of that year. The church, which seems to be Turner of Oxford’s only architectural work, dates from 1831. The artist was buried there at his death in 1862 and in 1896 a screen was erected in his memory. Some of the artist’s most celebrated watercolours are of water lilies on the River Cherwell, and from 1835 he sent a number to the exhibitions at the Society of Painters in Water Colours. The earliest of these, now in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art (B1981.24), shows the church at Shipton-on-Cherwell in the trees in the distance, a focal point of the composition.

Chale Bay- looking out to sea from St Catherine’s Down and Oratory, Isle of Wight Watercolour over traces of pencil. 32.3 x 54.1 cm.; 12 ¾ x 21 ¼ inches Provenance Spink, London, sold 11 October 1956; Private collection U.K., until 2020; With Karen Taylor Fine Art; Private collection, U.K. until 2024 Turner of Oxford was in Sussex in 1846 from when this beautiful drawing may well date, as he made a large watercolour from near Portsmouth with the Isle of Wight in the distance in that year. He has chosen a calm day and the stillness of the shepherds amplifies the awe with which they are observing the beauty of nature. The location has an interesting history. In 1313, a ship, the St Mary of Bayonne, was blown off-course and ran aground on the treacherous Atherfield Ledge in Chale Bay. Its cargo of white wine was sold illegally by the sailors and many barrels found their way into the cellars of Walter de Godeton, Lord of the Manor of Chale. The ship came from Gascony, then part of King Edward II’s kingdom. He was not amused, and Walter de Godeton was fined by an ecclesiastical court. The Pope heard of the incident and, to avoid excommunication, de Godeton was ordered to build an oratory and beacon on Chale Down as penance.