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 A Wooded River Scene, with Boats and a Distant Bridge 1821

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Wooded River Scene, with Boats and a Distant Bridge’ 1821
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 87 Recto:
A Wooded River Scene, with Boats and a Distant Bridge 1821
D18840
Turner Bequest CCXIII 91
Pencil and watercolour and on white wove paper, 113 x 187 mm
Part watermark ‘R Bar | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘S[...] Bright Fishing [?Rod]’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCXIII 90–91’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This drawing of a wooded river landscape continues across the truncated folio 86 verso opposite (D40984). The leaf’s dating and current setting are discussed in the Technical notes below.
Technical notes:
In Finberg’s 1909 Inventory, he noted in relation to Turner Bequest CCXIII 90 (folio 86 as now bound: D18839, D40984) and 91 (the present leaf, folio 87): ‘The following two pages may belong to this book. They agree in size and water mark. Page 90 has been cut down, and the two leaves mounted on cartridge.’1
The leaves were presumably bound in here as part of the programme of consolidation and restoration of Turner Bequest sketchbooks at the British Museum following the 1928 Tate flood; in fact, the association is spurious. The outer part of folio 86 survives elsewhere in the Bequest, listed by Finberg in one of his groupings of separate sheets: Tate D25519 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII a 4) and its verso (D40311). D25519 is now known as A Group of Boats at Rouen, and its similarity to other sketches made on Turner’s 1821 tour of France has led Ian Warrell to connect the two leaves now bound here with that year’s Paris, Seine and Dieppe sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXI).2 Despite its title, that book contains numerous English subjects, so the view here could be English or French.
The use of watercolour wash in the sky studies here and on D18839 can be associated with two watercolour sky studies remaining in the Paris, Seine and Dieppe book (Tate D18529 and D18530; Turner Bequest CCXI 3, 4).

Matthew Imms
December 2014

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.650.
2
See Warrell 1999, pp.24, 265 under no.6.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Wooded River Scene, with Boats and a Distant Bridge 1821 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-a-wooded-river-scene-with-boats-and-a-distant-bridge-r1172956, accessed 26 April 2024.