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, Monument and St Magnus the Martyr c.1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Custom House, Monument and St Magnus the Martyr’ c.1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 75 Verso:
The Custom House, Monument and St Magnus the Martyr circa 1825
D07083
Turner Bequest CV 66a
Pencil on white wove paper, 108 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘India W[harf]’ within image left, ‘Bow’ above left and ‘Erected in the Year of ... | In the Reign of HM K. G. III’ top right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted, this most detailed of drawings in the book is continued on folio 76 (D07115; Turner Bequest CV 83) to form a double-page spread extending the view upstream to London Bridge. If the leaf is folded to overlap, the façade of the Custom House, with the new section added by Robert Smirke in 1825 to the earlier building by David Laing, is seen to be completed on folio 74 verso (D07081; Turner Bequest CV 65a). There is a very similar view of the building, from the same angle parallel to the picture plane, in watercolour in the Scotland and London Bridge sketchbook (Tate D13826; Turner Bequest CLXX 11).
See Introduction to the sketchbook for plans in the mid 1820s for a series of London subjects, including London Bridge, the Custom House and the Tower.

David Blayney Brown
June 2010

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Custom House, Monument and St Magnus the Martyr 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-monument-and-st-magnus-the-martyr-r1134617, accessed 18 April 2024.