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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Cheshire, Derbyshire, North Wales ... > Tabley No.3 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Custom House and Monument c.1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Custom House and Monument’ c.1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Verso:
The Custom House and Monument circa 1825
D07039
Turner Bequest CV 40a
Pencil on white wove paper, 108 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘white’, ‘GMB’, ‘E to HLR’ left and ‘GMB’ upper right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted, the subject is continued on folio 45 (D07040; Turner Bequest CV 41).
See Introduction to the sketchbook for plans in the mid 1820s for a series of London subjects, including the Custom House. As in many drawings in the book, the composition is similar to The Custom House (Vancouver Art Gallery),1 engraved by J.C. Allen, 1827. In this drawing, there is sufficient detail to recognise the new central façade added by Robert Smirke in 1825 to the earlier building by David Laing. For a more detailed drawing see folio 75 verso (D07083; Turner Bequest CV 66a). The Monument appears behind the Custom House.

David Blayney Brown
June 2010

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, pp.358–9 no.516.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Custom House and Monument c.1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-custom-house-and-monument-r1134563, accessed 18 April 2024.