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

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 and Tate D25491; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 368; see Technical notes below. Following on from D25491 it adds more detail and differentiation to the houses, noting their terracotta roof tiles, and builds up a play of slanting shadows and reflections on the surface of the river. The distant mountains have taken on the clear blue seen in the finished version. A boat crowded with figures, right of centre, is indicated by stopping out the transparent washes otherwise suggesting the water. The washerwomen and their laundry on the right bank in the final watercolour are also beginning to come into focus here. In his notes for the Marlborough House catalogue, John Ruskin described this as a ‘study, or perhaps abandoned commencement’ of the Holford watercolour.2 Later, when it was shown (probably with D25468) at the National Gallery, he praised it ‘among the most exquisite fragments existing of [Turner’s] central manner’.3

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 preceding study, D25491, as noted above, and for the finished watercolour.

Peter Bower, identifying the paper, illustrates a detail of the watermark and a micrograph of the surface.1

Verso:

Laid down