CATALOGUE EVIDENCE ~O~ The discovery of JMW Turner's oil on canvas exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793 ~O~ CATALOGUE EVIDENCE
1793 Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogue Evidence - Turner's Three Exhibits

No. 263 was a small oil of around 24" x 30", including its frame, hung in the Anti-Room.

• This is the only oil so it must be the oil described by Cunningham, 'Rising Squall over St. Vincent's Rocks at Bristol',
• described by Monkhouse as the 'Rising Squall, Hot Wells',
• Redgrave called it 'The Rising Squall' and
• Turner's title was 'The rising squall, hot wells, from St. Vincent's rock, Bristol'.

No. 316 was a watercolour and, looking at the 1793 catalogue it is found that its title is: 'Gate of St. Augustine's monastery, Canterbury'.*[1]*[3]

• 
• In order for them to be included in the exhibition Turner's three 1793 exhibits would be delivered around March 1793. So they would, at the latest, be painted late 1792 or early 1793. Turner must therefore have visited Canterbury before the end of 1792.*[2]

No. 323 was a watercolour.

• Monkhouse calls this 'View on the River Avon, near St. Vincent's Rocks, Bristol'
• 
• This is a painting based on Turner's material from his visit to the Narraways in Bristol in 1791.
• Turner's title (albeit printed against exh. 263) was almost identical, 'View on the river Avon, near St. Vincent's rock, Bristol'

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*Footnotes:

*[1] Page 11 of the 1793 Royal Academy Exhibition Catalogue showing the title of No. 316.

A title such as this would have been supplied by the artist. If no title was supplied by the artist a work would be catalogued as a generic type egs: 'Portrait of a Gentleman', 'A Landscape'...

*[2] Chronology of Events Leading Up To the Painting of the Candidate Oil

23 April 1775 Turner birth
23 April 1791 Turner 16th birthday
1791 Turner Visits Narraways in Bristol
1791 Turner sketched D00074 in the 'Bristol and Malmesbury Sketchbook'
1791 Turner returned to London
1791 (a) Turner painted two small watercolours based on his visit to Bristol D00389 and D00391
1791 (c) Turner painted Malmesbury Abbey watercolour (based on his visit to Bristol) for RA exhibition
14 January 1792 Pantheon fire. Turner sketched and painted his watercolour D00121 over the next few days or weeks
March 1792 Turner delivered to the RA Exhibition: 'Malmesbury Abbey' No. 436
March 1792 Turner delivered to the RA Exhibition: 'The Pantheon, the morning after the fire', D00121, No. 472
23 April 1792 Turner 17th birthday
1792 Some time during say the middle of the year Turner visited Canterbury and made sketches of St. Augustine's monastery
1792 In late 1792 Turner painted a watercolour which would become RA 1793 exhibit 323
1792 In late 1792 Turner painted a watercolour that he called 'Gate of St. Augustine's monastery, Canterbury' and would become RA 1793 exhibit 316
1792 In late 1792 Turner painted an oil on canvas which would become RA 1793 exhibit 263
March 1793 Turner delivered to the RA Exhibition: An oil on canvas No. 263 which Cunningham called 'Rising Squall over St. Vincent's Rocks at Bristol'.
March 1793 Turner delivered to the RA Exhibition: A watercolour No. 316 which he (Turner) called 'Gate of St. Augustine's monastery, Canterbury'
March 1793 Turner delivered to the RA Exhibition: A watercolour No. 323
April 1793 Turner 18th birthday

Notes on the chronology

(a) 1791 or 1792. The order of D00389 and D00391 is not clear but the both include the dome rock.
(b) The chronology will be expanded in later notes.
(c) late 1791 or early 1792 but before Turner's 1792 exhibits plans were interrupted by the Pantheon fire

*[3] Exhibit No. 316 may have been the watercolour now in Yale, The Paul Mellon Centre Fo Studies in British Art.

In this illustration two sketchbook size images from the Turner Bequest are shown to the left of the Yale/Mellon image. The Yale/Mellon is around 14" x 19" (very close to the size of the candidate oil) a size that Turner seemed comfortable to exhibit at this time (1792 Pantheon 15"x20" sup. page ref 07_00). It is clear, from the absence of the top of the right tower, that the image has been cropped or the watercolour has been trimmed.

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