Old Houses at Chester, 1794
titled and dated to the mount, the backboard inscribed ‘from WRussell Flint / July 1924’
pencil on paper bearing 'J Whatman' watermark
28 x 21cm

Provenance:
Probably Thomas Griffith (Turner's dealer);
Possibly the American author Charles Eliot Norton (1827-1908) who lent ‘three drawings by JMW Turner - pencil sketches of old houses at Chester and a bit of Edinburgh’ to The Architectural League Exhibition of 1887 in New York;
Sir William Russell Flint (1880-1969), 1924, according to the inscription verso;
With the Cotswold Gallery, London

In the summer of 1794, Turner made an extended tour of the Midlands, visiting a number of places from Cambridge to Chester, where the present study was executed. He was chiefly employed in making drawings of English towns, many of which were engraved over the next three years in 'The Copper Plate Magazine'. A closely comparable drawing of the same date and style, depicting The Falcon Inn, Lower Bridge, Chester is in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (2023.29.24).

A photolithographic reproduction of this drawing is in the collection of the Yale Centre for British Art (B1977.14.14166).

We are grateful to Ian Warrell for indicating that the present drawing was noted by Finberg as having been with the Cotswold Gallery, and can probably be traced back to Turner's dealer Thomas Griffith.