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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Pont de Sèvres 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 5 Recto:
The Pont de Sèvres 1819
D13999
Turner Bequest CLXXIII 5
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 185 mm
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIII 5’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From the centre of Paris, Turner followed the River Seine south-west to the suburbs of Sèvres and St-Cloud and this short expedition gave rise to a series of sketches, see folios 6 and 12 (D14001 and D14011). The subject of this view is the Pont de Sèvres, a stone bridge of nine arches built during the early nineteenth century on the orders of Napoleon. The vista appears to be looking north-west from the banks of the Seine in the direction of St-Cloud.1 The drawing bears certain compositional similarities to a later watercolour illustration, Bridge of St-Cloud from Sèvres, engraved and published for Turner’s Annual Tour 1835: Wanderings by the Seine (see Tate D24689; Turner Bequest CCLIX 124).

Nicola Moorby
February 2013

1
Warrell 1999, p.18.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Pont de Sèvres 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-pont-de-sevres-r1142858, accessed 28 March 2024.