Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Custom House and Monument

c.1825

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Tabley No.3 Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 108 × 185 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D07039
Turner Bequest CV 40 a

Catalogue entry

Drawn with the sketchbook inverted, the subject is continued on folio 45 (D07040; Turner Bequest CV 41).
See Introduction to the sketchbook for plans in the mid 1820s for a series of London subjects, including the Custom House. As in many drawings in the book, the composition is similar to The Custom House (Vancouver Art Gallery),1 engraved by J.C. Allen, 1827. In this drawing, there is sufficient detail to recognise the new central façade added by Robert Smirke in 1825 to the earlier building by David Laing. For a more detailed drawing see folio 75 verso (D07083; Turner Bequest CV 66a). The Monument appears behind the Custom House.

David Blayney Brown
June 2010

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, pp.358–9 no.516.

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