Joseph Mallord William TurnerNorth Bridge, Edinburgh 1818

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Artwork details

Artist
Title
North Bridge, Edinburgh
From Edinburgh, 1818, Sketchbook
Turner Bequest CLXVI
Date 1818
MediumGraphite on paper
Dimensionssupport: 112 x 90 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D13567
Turner Bequest CLXVI 61
View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Recto:
North Bridge, Edinburgh 1818
D13567
Turner Bequest CLXVI 61
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 90 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘3 arches all alike’ centre; ‘the Castle to do from | High st The new C. The | Castle E from Castle and | W the C E of Tron | and Horricks’ centre right
Stamped in black ‘CLXVI 61’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg identified the main sketch in this page as the North Bridge in Edinburgh.1 The appearance of the bridge has changed considerably owing to its reconstruction in 1877, but this sketch is recognisable as the original structure through comparisons with contemporary engravings such as the one by J and H.S. Storer published in Views in Edinburgh and its Vicinity, Volume 2 in 1818. As a shortcut Turner has only drawn one arch of the bridge but noted ‘3 arches all alike’. The North Bridge connects Princes Street in the north with the Royal Mile to the south. The buildings on this page to the right of the bridge are a separate sketch, but are probably nearby.
The long inscription on this page provides an insight into Turner’s working process on this tour of Scotland, demonstrating the artist taking stock of his work in Edinburgh so far, and listing a number of subjects still to draw: ‘The Castle to do from the High St[reet]. The new C[?hurch]’, the ‘Castle [from the] E[east] and W[est]’, the ‘Tron’ Kirk and something that Finberg reads as ‘Herricks’,2 but could be ‘Horricks’ or perhaps even ‘Heriot’s [Hospital]’, which Turner did sketch during this tour.

Thomas Ardill
January 2008

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.483, CLXVI 61.
2
Ibid.

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