Joseph Mallord William Turner

Riverside or Canal Scene

1824

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Rivers Meuse and Moselle Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 78 × 118 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D19881
Turner Bequest CCXVI 164

Catalogue entry

Rendered with a brevity of line, here Turner pictures part of a riverside scene. A barge can be seen with its sails up high at left while a solitary figure stands atop a quayside wall at right. The surrounding environment is left blank, Turner drawing in no other aspect of the physical location in which the figure and vessels are situated. This composition, most probably the chance result of the artist moving on to sketch another view or perhaps finding this prospect lacking, is striking nonetheless.
Verso:
Blank, with the exception of a single pencil stroke.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2014

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