Joseph Mallord William Turner

The drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. It is a rougher version of the view on folio 42 verso (D20798; Turner Bequest CCXXVII 40a), under which the subject is discussed.

Technical notes:

Turner has utilised the fortuitously dark area of the grey wash with which the paper had been prepared (like all the rectos in this sketchbook), using heavy tonal pencil hatching to emphasise the sense of the shadowy structure of the bridge. Towards the bottom right a contrastingly delicate horizontal line of rippling reflection has been scratched through the ground to expose the white paper, and isolated small areas have been rubbed or scratched out to give variety to the loosely indicated boats and figures below.