The work has traditionally been categorised as an unengraved
Liber Studiorum design. Turner did not record the bridge again until his 1840s visits, for example in the
Spires and Heidelberg sketchbook (Tate
D29772; Turner Bequest CCXCVII 1). In the subsequent moonlit ‘sample study’ (Tate
D36182; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV [a] 324) and finished watercolour of 1843 (British Museum, London)
1 the bridge’s tower appears respectively at the left and right ends of the bridge, implying opposite viewpoints. The present design is quite tentative and perhaps therefore datable to the early days of the
Liber project; However, Gillian Forrester has compared it technically to the
Liber design
Moonlight at Sea (Tate
D08176; Vaughan Bequest CXVIII V), which she has dated to about 1818.
2 In the absence of specific evidence, the span of the
Liber Studiorum’s active publication, 1807–19, is suggested here as a date range for the present work (as it is for various other unpublished designs). Its general similarities to the designs showing Basle and Laufenberg (see Tate
D08110,
D08135; Turner Bequest CXVI I, CXVII H) may have led to its rejection, especially as the Basle composition may have originally been intended as a moonlit scene. However, as Andrew Wilton has noted, ‘it does foreshadow in a most interesting way’ the 1843 compositions.
3