J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Thames sketchbooks c.1804-14 > Greenwich Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The City of London from the River Thames, and Riverside Buildings c.1808

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The City of London from the River Thames, and Riverside Buildings’ c.1808
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Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Verso:
The City of London from the River Thames, and Riverside Buildings circa 1808
D06761
Turner Bequest CII 21a
Pencil on white wove paper, 76 x 115 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These sketches continue on folio 22 (D06762). They are not views of Greenwich, but of the City with St Paul’s Cathedral and other churches, seen from the Thames (above), and probably of the opposite bank in Southwark (below). The City view is similar to the panorama in the background of London (Tate N00483) exhibited at Turner’s Gallery in 1809;1 see Introduction to the sketchbook for its connections with this picture. A similar view is on folios 22 verso–23 (D05763–D05764).

David Blayney Brown
March 2007

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.69–70 no.97 (pl.104).

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The City of London from the River Thames, and Riverside Buildings c.1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2007, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012, http://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-city-of-london-from-the-river-thames-and-riverside-r1130854, accessed 20 May 2013.