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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Midlands 1830 > Kenilworth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Magdalen College and Bridge, Oxford 1830

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Magdalen College and Bridge, Oxford’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
Magdalen College and Bridge, Oxford 1830
D21977
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 2
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘2’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXVIII – 2’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view is to the west from the Plain over Magdalen Bridge over the Cherwell, with Magdalen College on the right and the High Street beyond. The foreground now obscured by trees. There are various isolated architectural details at the top left.
Turner worked repeatedly around Oxford in his early career, and returned periodically.1 The college and bridge are seen in a drawing of 1793 (Tate D00127; Turner Bequest XI B) and two watercolour versions in the British Museum, London2 and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.3 Later views include those in the Rhine, Strassburg and Oxford sketchbook (Tate D04755, D04769; Turner Bequest LXXVII 19, 29a) from the early 1800s.
There are other Oxford views inside the front cover (D41045), on folio 1 recto (D21975) and folio 1 verso opposite (D21976).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
See Harrison 2000, pp.86–7 and in general.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.308–9 no.70, reproduced.
3
Ibid., p.308 no.69, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Magdalen College and Bridge, Oxford 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-magdalen-college-and-bridge-oxford-r1148618, accessed 26 April 2024.