Magdalen College and Bridge, Oxford

1830

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Kenilworth Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 120 x 203 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D21977
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 2

Catalogue entry

The view is to the west from the Plain over Magdalen Bridge over the Cherwell, with Magdalen College on the right and the High Street beyond. The foreground now obscured by trees. There are various isolated architectural details at the top left.

Turner worked repeatedly around Oxford in his early career, and returned periodically.1 The college and bridge are seen in a drawing of 1793 (Tate D00127; Turner Bequest XI B) and two watercolour versions in the British Museum, London 2 and the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester.3 Later views include those in the Rhine, Strassburg and Oxford sketchbook (Tate D04755, D04769; Turner Bequest LXXVII 19, 29a) from the early 1800s.

There are other Oxford views inside the front cover (D41045), on folio 1 recto (D21975) and folio 1 verso opposite (D21976).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

See Harrison 2000, pp.86–7 and in general.

Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.308–9 no.70, reproduced.

Ibid., p.308 no.69, reproduced.

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