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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > England and Wales Colour Studies c.1825 ... > Studies for Published 'England and ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A River Scene, Possibly with a Bridge and Buildings c.1829

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A River Scene, Possibly with a Bridge and Buildings’ c.1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A River Scene, Possibly with a Bridge and Buildings c.1829
D40262
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 325 x 562 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Spot [or ‘Shot’?] taken out by k[...] | of C P’ top right (partly obscured by mount)
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram above ‘CCLXIII – 121’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This side of the sheet is not mentioned in Eric Shanes’s Watercolour Explorations,1 survey of Turner’s ‘colour beginnings’, in which he speculates that the watercolour on the recto (D25243; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 121) may be a study for a view of Bedford of about 1829 in the England and Wales series.
The pencil work here is extremely loose, with buildings roughly indicated above the skyline at the centre. The pale forms on the right are possibly the receding piers of a stone bridge, suggesting a river rather than a lake. Finberg rendered the inscription as ‘Spot taken out by knife (?) of C.P.’, though its precise sense remains obscure.

Matthew Imms
March 2013

1
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A River Scene, Possibly with a Bridge and Buildings c.1829 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-river-scene-possibly-with-a-bridge-and-buildings-r1144237, accessed 20 April 2024.