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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Grenoble Bridge c.1824 > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Grenoble Bridge c.1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Grenoble Bridge’ c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Grenoble Bridge c.1824
D25491
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 368
Watercolour on white wove paper, 504 x 711 mm
Watermarked ‘B.E.& S | 1823’
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII 368’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
See notes to Tate D25468; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 345 for four progress colour studies for the watercolour Grenoble Bridge (Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland)1 made for Charles Holford apparently in 1824. This study is on the same paper as the Holford watercolour; see Technical notes below. To the basic opposition of blue and ochre laid out in D25468 it adds more structure and content, with suggestions of the piers of the bridge, other buildings and rowing boats on the river. The washes are also more subtle and diffused, as Turner experiments with the atmosphere of a sunlit summer day.
1
Wilton 1979, p.345 no.404.
Technical notes:
The paper was made by Bally, Ellen and Steart at De Montalt Mill, Combe Down, Bath, Somerset, and watermarked. Turner used the same paper for the next in his series of studies (Tate D25469; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 346) and for the finished watercolour.
Verso:
Laid down

David Blayney Brown
January 2012

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Grenoble Bridge c.1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-grenoble-bridge-r1146533, accessed 24 April 2024.