Joseph Mallord William Turner

?Eastcott Bridge on the River Tamar

1814

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Devon Rivers, No.1 Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 90 × 152 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D09590
Turner Bequest CXXXII 100

Catalogue entry

Finberg read the inscription as ‘Eastcourt’,1 which seems feasible, but Turner may have misspelled or misheard the name of Eastcott Wood, on the River Tamar about six miles north of Launceston (see under folio 106 recto; D09596), and about two north of Boyton (see folio 103 recto; D09593). If so, the artist was making a short excursion upriver from Launceston, and apparently went no further.
Bill Harvey, a Devon civil engineer, was involved in the restoration of the current two-arched stone footbridge in Eastcott Wood, noting that local records suggest it may have replaced a wooden bridge with a central pier (possibly as indicated by Turner here) in about 1842.2
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.374.
2
See Bill Harvey, ‘Bridge of the Month No38, Jan 2014: Eastcott Bridge Tetcott’, Arches, accessed 2 June 2014, http://billharvey.typepad.com/BridgeOfTheMonth/2014/Bridge%20of%20the%20Month%20No38.pdf.
Verso:
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Matthew Imms
June 2014

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