'Ivybridge: The River Erme and ?Stowford Paper Mill', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Ivybridge: The River Erme and ?Stowford Paper Mill

From Ivy Bridge to Penzance Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CXXV

Date 1811

MediumGraphite on paper

Dimensionssupport: 166 x 208 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D08938

Turner Bequest CXXV 47

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the Ivy Bridge to Penzance Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 2 Recto:

Ivybridge: The River Erme and ?Stowford Paper Mill 1811

D08938
Turner Bequest CXXV 47

Pencil on white wove paper, 166 x 208 mm
Inscribed in pencil ‘47’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV – 47’ bottom right

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Exhibition history

References

Ruskin noted this drawing 1 as the source of Turner’s oil painting Ivy Bridge Mill, Devonshire, exhibited at his gallery in 1812 (private collection).2 The painting closely follows the sketch, which includes an unusual amount of shading. The Arjo Wiggins paper company now occupies the much rebuilt Stowford mill, established in 1787 3 on the east bank of the Erme upstream from Ivy Bridge, on the northern outskirts of the town of Ivybridge, although the oldest parts of the current complex date from 1862.4

Finberg numbers this page towards the end of his listing for this sketchbook, but it is unclear whether the leaf was actually bound there or simply noted after the bound sheets. The same applies to the drawing now bound as folio 1 recto (D08939; CXXV 48), which probably shows a nearby view. Conversely, the first page Finberg lists (D08865; CXXV 1) is now bound at the back of the book as folio 48 verso.

There are views of the nearby bridge in the Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D08654, D08655; Turner Bequest CXXIII 153, 153a), and in the later Devon Rivers, No.2 sketchbook (Tate D09722; Turner Bequest CXXXIII 45), where adjacent pages may show the paper mill (D09723, D09724; CXXXIII 46, 47).

Catalogue of the Sketches and Drawings by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Exhibited in Marlborough House in the Year 1857–8 in Cook and Wedderburn 1904, p.259; see Finberg 1961, p.191, Butlin and Joll 1984, p.86, Taylor 1960, p.28, and Joll and Butlin 1982, p.101.

Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.86–7 no.122, pl.128.

‘Heritage Trail’, Ivybridge Town Guide, accessed 26 March 2009, http://www.burrows.co.uk/ivybridge.

Nikolaus Pevsner, South Devon, The Buildings of England, Harmondsworth 1952, p.186.

Technical notes:

The sheet is darkened from prolonged exposure, except where the edges were protected by its mount.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscription in pencil ‘CXXV. 47’ bottom right. Tears to the edges have been repaired.

Matthew Imms
February 2011

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.