Possi🌸bly commissioned by John Landseer (17♒63-1852);

The Hoꦿn. Sir Harry Crichton, K.C.B. (1844-1922) of Netley Castle, Hampshire,

by descent to his wife, Lady Emma Crichton, C.B.E. (🔜d. 1936);

with Colnaghi, London, after 1936;

sale, London, Sotheby's, 10 April 1997, lot 35;

sale, Lond꧅on, Christie’s, 11 November 1997, lot 31 (£11,500)

A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p. 315, no. 142, as untraced;

S. Whittingham, 'Picture notes', Turner Studies, vol. VI, no. 2, Winter 1986, p. 67, reproduced;

I. Warrell, Turner’s Wessex – architecture and ambition, London/New York 2015, p. 158

E. Shanes, Young Mr Turner – The First Forty Years 1775-1815, London 2016, p. 118

London, Royal Academy, 1796, no. 699

This watercolour, which Turner exhibited at the Royal🐽 Academy exhibition of 1796, was pa𒁏inted following the artist’s first visit to the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1795.

The Isle of Wight, which lies off the Hampshire coast, had been gaining in popularity since the publication of John Hassell’s Tour of the Isle of Wight in 1790 but Turner may have been spurred on to make the journey himself through his friendship with Philippe Jacques de Loutherbourg (1740-1813), the émigré marine painter who had spen✃t time there in 1794.

Turner’s own visit to the island was brief, perhaps no more than a week. Nonetheless, that gave him ample opportunity to explore, and he recorded the places that interested him - in both full watercolour and more basic pencil - in his so-called ‘Isle of Wight sketchbook’.¹ At Chale, which is situated close to the southern tip of the island, Turner made two carefully observed pencil drawings; the first showed the church from the south-east, while the second - which he developed into the present lot – recorded Chale Abbey Farmhouse, a building which had been constructed in the 14^th century at the behest of John de Langford, Constable of Carisbrooke Ca✃stle and Warde♚n of the Island (fig. 1).

At some point after Turner had returned to London he was approached by the printmaker John Landseer (1769-1852), who was interested in commissioning a set of watercolours which he could publish as engravings under the title 'Views in the Isle of Wight’. Although Turner made a listing of Landseer’s ‘order’ in his sketchbook, the projec🦩t appears never to have got off the ground.

The present watercolour once belonged to the Hon. Sir Harry Crichton and his wife Lady Emma, née Baring. They lived at Netley Castle, Hampshire, a place where Turner coincidentally visited in 1795 on his way down to the Isle of Wight. Sir Harry was the youngest son of John, 3^rd Earl of Erne, while Lady Emma was the daughter of Thomas, 1^st Earl of Northbrook.

1. See Tate Britain, Turner Bequest XXIV 1–52