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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Dynevor Castle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Abergavenny: The Usk Bridge 1798

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Abergavenny: The Usk Bridge’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Verso:
Abergavenny: The Usk Bridge 1798
D01496
Turner Bequest XL 20a
Pencil on white wove paper, 135 x 95 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘73’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘XL – 20 a’ bottom left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner elaborated two large watercolours from the modest hints supplied by this little drawing. He exhibited one of them at the Royal Academy in 1799 with the title Abergavenny Bridge, Monmouthshire, clearing up after a showery day. This may be the work now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London,1 or an untraced version.2 The finished subject is relatively undramatic topographically and relies heavily on the climatic conditions it depicts for its effect, which apparently reflect Turner’s own experience of the place, since his sketch is notable for its inclusion of rainy clouds and lowering shadows. On 13 March 1799, the artist and diarist Joseph Farington records that the watercolour was ‘made for Lawrence’,3 which Finberg interprets as meaning that the artist (Sir) Thomas Lawrence (1769–1830) had commissioned it.4
One leaf seems to have been removed between this page and folio 23 recto opposite (D01497; Turner Bequest XL 21); if so, this must have taken place before Turner used the book in Wales, since the drawing of Abergavenny Bridge continues on the other page. Another drawing that possibly shows the bridge is the loose sheet Tate D02361 (Turner Bequest L T).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.327–8 no.252, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.328 no.253.
3
Kenneth Garlick and Angus Macintyre eds., The Diary of Joseph Farington, vol.IV, New Haven and London 1979, p.1172.
4
Alexander J. Finberg, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Second Edition, Revised, with a Supplement, by Hilda F. Finberg, revised ed., Oxford 1961, p.56

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Abergavenny: The Usk Bridge 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, 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-abergavenny-the-usk-bridge-r1173735, accessed 18 September 2024.