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 The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 82 Recto:
The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge 1825
D18824
Turner Bequest CCXIII 82
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 187 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘82’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXIII – 82’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, there are two rapid sketches here, apparently both from south of the marquee erected over the coffer-dam around the site of the southernmost pier of the new London Bridge, for the foundation stone ceremony held on the riverbed on 15 June 1825. In the upper sketch, Southwark Bridge and the silhouetted dome of St Paul’s Cathedral are seen upstream to the west. The lower drawing seems to show the south side of the coffer-dam, with flags flying over the marquee. Compare the view on folio 81 verso opposite (D18823).
The ceremony and other studies relating to it at the beginning and end of this sketchbook are discussed in the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge 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-the-london-bridge-foundation-stone-ceremony-the-marquee-r1172946, accessed 16 April 2024.