'The rising squall, hot wells, from St. Vincent's
rock, Bristol'
by JMW Turner; exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1793
Hobart Town Exhibition 1845
Detail; e-mail, catalogue pages and study done as part of a Tasmanian University syllabus by Keith Adkins
Layout of the catalogue
There are two sections, the first being oils and the second, starting on page 7, being watercolour-drawings. No. 125 in the watercolour-drawings is JMW Turner's 'View on the Dee' a drawing that later belonged to Sir William Richard Drake. At No. 139 there is another JMW Turner drawing 'Shakespeare's Cliff, Dover'. These drawings were in the possession of Rev Dr. Francis Russell Nixon, Bishop of Tasmania.
The Bishop also exhibited two oils by JMW Turner both listed on page 4 of the catalogue:
These two oils were exhibited again in 1858. Nixon believed, incorrectly, that No 39 was JMW Turner's first oil. Although that belief was incorrect in respect of the title, it strongly supports the evidence that his father, the Rev. Robert Nixon of Foots Cray, did in fact own JMW Turner's first oil. (Shown elsewhere: it was JMW Turner's second oil on canvas that was owned by Rev. Robert Nixon; the first was in the posession of the family of Rev. James Douglas of Rochester, Kent and Kenton, Suffolk.)
Nixon returned to England in March 1863 and sold these two oils at a sale of 9th July 1864 which is recorded in the Art Journal with titles shown respectively:
In or around 1925 the watercolour-drawing in Bristol Museum was mistakenly identified as 'The Rising Squall' and the sale of 9th July recorded in its provenance. There are therefore direct recorded links between 'Landscape' (1845), 'The Hotwells, Bristol - Storm coming on' (1864) and 'The rising squall, hot wells, from St. Vincent's rock, Bristol' (around 1925)
