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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Interior of St Mary Aldermary, London 1796-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Verso:
The Interior of St Mary Aldermary, London 1796–7
D01171
Turner Bequest XXXVII 54
Pencil, pen and brown and grey wash on blue laid wrapping paper prepared with a red-brown wash, 113 x 93 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXXVII – 54’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The composition, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, continues across folio 28 recto opposite (D01172; Turner Bequest XXXVII 55). The identification of this City of London church is due to the architectural historian Christopher Wilson. It is noteworthy that Turner has chosen a viewpoint that gives emphasis to the spatial qualities of the interior, heightened by contrasts of light and shade, rather than showing the elaborate neo-Perpendicular fan-vaulting for which Sir Christopher Wren’s design is famous.

Andrew Wilton
September 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘The Interior of St Mary Aldermary, London 1796–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-interior-of-st-mary-aldermary-london-r1149863, accessed 28 March 2024.