138 - William Turner of Oxford, OWS,

William Turner of Oxford, OWS, British 1789-1862- Goodrich Castle; lead pencil heightened with white on brown paper, with an inscription on a label to the verso 'One of 24 drawings made into an album / in 1813 and priced at 6 guineas. It was / purchased in 1814 by THOS. PENROSE of NEW COLLEGE', 18.2 x 26.5 cm. Provenance: Acquired in 1814 by Thomas Penrose. with Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd., London, in 1981. Mr. and Mrs. J. Goodfellow, by 1984. Private Collection, UK. Exhibited: London, Thos. Agnew & Sons Ltd., '108th Annual Exhibition of Watercolours and Drawings', 1981, no. 76. Woodstock, Oxfordshire County Museum, 'William Turner of Oxford', 9 September-28 October 1984, no. 23. London, The Bankside Gallery, 'William Turner of Oxford', 6 November-2 December 1984. Bolton, The Museum and Art Gallery, 'William Turner of Oxford', 15 December 1984-19 January 1985. Note: The English poet William Wordsworth (1770-1850) deemed Goodrich Castle "the noblest ruin in Herefordshire". William Turner of Oxford, fascinated by the charm of these 11th century Norman ruins, depicted them several times throughout his life. The present lot is a fantastic example of the artist's sensibility in capturing the scene with an elegant economy of means: by using just two pigments, lead pencil and white, he has represented a dense forest, whose tree canopies give way to the top of Goodrich Castle's towers. This work was exhibited in the 1984 Woodstock exhibition hosted at the Oxfordshire County Museum, one of the most important Turner of Oxford retrospectives ever held.