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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > Mortlake and Pulborough Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner London ?from the Vicinity of Mortlake ?1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘London ?from the Vicinity of Mortlake’ ?1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Verso:
London ?from the Vicinity of Mortlake ?1825
D18776
Turner Bequest CCXIII 45a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 187 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Brixton]’ towards top right, and ‘[Road]’ bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg assumed that this page shows ‘Views on river at Mortlake’,1 relating to the sketches around ‘The Limes’ beside the Thames on the immediately preceding pages (folios 43 verso–45 recto; D18772–D18775). However, the view here, running across the middle of the page and continued towards the top, seems to be a distant prospect of London from that general direction, looking north-east, apparently with the twin towers of Westminster Abbey to the right of centre in the main view and the dome of St Paul’s further off. The latter is repeated in the continuation above, with what may be ‘Brixton’ indicated on the right, to the south.
Westminster Abbey is six miles or more from Mortlake. The subsequent development of South London makes it difficult to suggest a precise viewpoint, but St Paul’s remains visible from the heights of nearby Richmond Park.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.649.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘London ?from the Vicinity of Mortlake ?1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-london-from-the-vicinity-of-mortlake-r1172898, accessed 19 April 2024.