A trip to the north of England in 1797, filling sketchbooks with pencil studies and watercolours of the lakes and wild Northumberland's many castle ruins, saw the diminutive Turner working up two versions of his Dunstanborough studies at once in his London studio - this, from Dunedin's collection, being the smaller and more vigorously painted of the two.
The other, more moody, larger version (now in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne) became part of his successful RA application in 1799, a significant step in what would become one of the most magnificent careers in British art history. A watercolour study in the collection of the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is an almost exact replica of Dunedin's painting, compositionally identical in every way but lacking the romantic, sombre tonality of this tumultuous little oil.
Through that famous career Turner frequently returned to the 14th-century Dunstanborough ruins for subject matter: his last major oil in which these fabled stones figured was shown at the RA 35 years later.
Two further points of interest: the Dunedin oil was sold in London in 1900 for 1320 guineas; then passed on two years later for 820 guineas. In May 1903 it sold again for 600 guineas, then in 1930 at Christies in London it was bought by an art dealer - ironically named Meatyard - for a mere 30 guineas. Dunedin Public Art Gallery purchased it in 1931.
Dunstanborough Castle ruins, abandoned by the 1500s, were fondly recalled by surveyor J. T. Thomson when on his initial mapping of the interior of the Otago province in 1857-58. He named the similarly craggy and fractured silhouette of the Dunstan Mountains in its honour.
The exhibition
• Angels and Aristocrats - Early European Art in New Zealand Public Collections" is on at the Dunedin Public Art Gallery until July 28.
• For a free poster from this exhibition, go to the Dunedin Public Art Gallery and tell them which is your favourite work in "Angels & Aristocrats".
- Grahame Sydney
