Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

Probably Mrs Sophia Booth (1798-1875), the artist’s landlady,

Daniel John Pound, her son by her first marriage;

Hannah Cooper, née Hughes (1804-1861), by February 1858;

with J. & W. Vokins, London,

Sir Donald Currie, G.C.M.G. (1825-1909),

by family descent to the present owner

Sir W. Armstrong, Turner, London 1902, p. 276

A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p. 476, no. 1466

I. Warrell, Through Switzerland with Turner, London 1995, p. 55, under no. 19

London, Agnew’s, Watercolours, 1922, no. 112;

London, Agnew’s, Centenary Exhibition of Water Colour Drawings by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 1951, no. 102;

London, Agnew’s, Agnew’s 150^th Anniversary Exhibition: Paintings and Watercolours by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., 1967, no. 7;

Shropshire, Weston Park and Cumbria, Levens Hall, on loan periodically since 2009

This watercolor, which dates to 1841, was acquired by Sir Donald Currie (1825-1909) in the late 19^th century and it has remained within the collection of his descendants until this day. It is a magnificent example - full of spontaneity, energy and drama - from an iconic period in Turner’s life, that saw him make four, successive, summer sketching tours to Switzerland (1841-1844) and create a body of work that many consider represents the very pinnacle of his achievements in the medium of watercolor.

Turner has positioned himself near to the village of Neusen am Rheinfall, a couple of miles south-west of Schaffhausen in northern Switzerland. Before him, the icy waters of the mighty river Rhine surge - with immense force - over Europe’s largest waterfalls: a natural spectacle masterfully suggested through a series of translucent washes and a stunning combination of scratching and stopping out.

As the water thunders over the rocks, great sprays create a rainbow, while fine mists rise high in the sky to meet with the swirling clouds above. Light - and how it reacts to these turbulent conditions - is central to Turner’s thinking here and the results could scarcely be more dramatic.

Visibility is at its most opaque below the falls themselves, and Schloss Wörth (or Water Castle) appears to levitate, ghost-like, on the calmer waters. This contrasts markedly with the firm footings that Schloss Laufen enjoys, perched as it is, high on the cliff, on the far side of the river, bathed in sunshine. Turner increases the sense of warmth there by not only using a reed-pen, loaded with red pigment, to carefully map out the ancient fortress’s form, but also by applying tiny flicks of ochre-colored gouache to the stone walls. The nearside of the river, by contrast again, is largely cast in shadow and with great energy Turner employs a palette of charcoals, browns and dark blues, as well as pen and grey-black ink, to describe its undulating terrain and the houses and buildings of the village of Neusen am Rheinfall itself.

Turner had a long association with Schaffhausen, having first seen the waterfalls during his brief tour to the Swiss Alps in 1802 and having exhibited an oil painting of the subject at the Royal Academy in 1806.¹ However, by the time he came to paint the present work - over thirty years later - he had completely broken free of all constraints and precedents. Now, his aim was not so much to record a landscape’s topographical details but, instead, he was attempting to capture its very spirit. By studying watercolors such as this, it is easy to understand why, in 1845, Turner told the young John Ruskin that ‘atmosphere is my style’.²

The Falls of Schaffhausen is one of ten watercolors of this subject that were painted by Turner in 1841 and that are all likely to have originated from the same sketchbook. While three sheets from this group remain in private collections, the remainder are held in British and American institutions, namely: the National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (three), the Tate Britain and Courtauld Institute of Art in London, the Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana and the Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey.³

The present watercolor has a full and interesting provenance. It is thought to be one of a group of drawings and paintings which Turner gave to Mrs Booth. Sophia Anne Booth was first married to Henry Pound by whom she had a son Daniel John. On Pound's death she married John Booth, an older man who owned some property, and she moved with him from Deal to Margate where she ran a boarding house on the sea front. Turner visited Margate often, and he became a lodger at Mrs Booth's house. John Booth died in 1833 and Turner soon formed a close relationship with his widow. At first she remained at Margate but in the 1840s Turner bought a house at Chelsea overlooking the Thames and by the autumn of 1846 he was living there with her and her son. Mrs Booth continued to act as devoted housekeeper until his death in 1851.

The next known owner was Hannah Cooper, wife of the Rev. James Cooper (1793-1876) and niece of Turner's friend and stockbroker, Charles Stokes (1785-1853). Her husband was the mathematics master at St Paul's School and she lived with him and their two sons at nearby St Paul's Churchyard. Her uncle, Stokes, had formed an important collection of works by Turner and his circle which she documented in a series of notebooks that are now preserved in the Indianapolis Museum of Art. When Stokes died in 1853, he bequeathed a significant part of his collection to Hannah, who continued to accumulate works by Turner when the opportunity arose. By February 1858, for example, she was in possession of not only the present watercolor but eight of the ten sheets of the falls of Schaffhausen cited above.

Lastly the work entered the collection of Sir Donald Currie, within whose family it has remained until today. Donald Currie was born in Greenock on the Clyde and as a young man entered the world of shipping. He moved to Liverpool to work for the Cunard Shipping Company in 1844, rising quickly in his responsibilities, and developing a particular interest in the North Sea and Baltic Trade. In 1862 he founded the Castle Line of Sailing Ships which ran between Liverpool and Calcutta, and ten years later he transferred to the South African trade and founded the Castle Line of Steamers. He eventually came to control the Union-Castle's 282,000 tons of shipping and dominated South African shipping. As a result of his important contribution to British industry he was knighted in 1881. He was the Liberal MP for Perthshire from 1880 to 1900 and was a consistent and generous philanthropist; amongst the many institutions he supported were the Universities of Edinburgh, London, and Queen's College, Belfast. He was also the principal benefactor in the restoration of Dunkeld Cathedral.

Sir Donald Currie was passionate about Turner and amassed one of the greatest holdings of his work ever assembled. Andrew Wilton, in his seminal work The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, published in 1979, records that at various times he owned no fewer than fifty-seven watercolors and fourteen oil paintings from every period of Turner's career. This sale includes another watercolor by Turner that was once part of Sir Donald's legendary collection and that has descended, via a different branch of his family, to the present day. Please see lot 51.

We are grateful to Ian Warrell and Neil Jeffares for their help when cataloging this lot.

¹A. Wilton, op. cit., p. 258, no. P61

²I. Warrell, op. cit., 1995, p. 61

³A. Wilton, op. cit., pp. 475 & 476, nos. 1460-9