Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Custom House, Monument and St Magnus the Martyr

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 x 185 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D07083
Turner Bequest CV 66 a

Catalogue entry

Drawn with the sketchbook inverted, this most detailed of drawings in the book is continued on folio 76 (D07115; Turner Bequest CV 83) to form a double-page spread extending the view upstream to London Bridge. If the leaf is folded to overlap, the façade of the Custom House, with the new section added by Robert Smirke in 1825 to the earlier building by David Laing, is seen to be completed on folio 74 verso (D07081; Turner Bequest CV 65a). There is a very similar view of the building, from the same angle parallel to the picture plane, in watercolour in the Scotland and London Bridge sketchbook (Tate D13826; Turner Bequest CLXX 11).

See Introduction to the sketchbook for plans in the mid 1820s for a series of London subjects, including London Bridge, the Custom House and the Tower.

David Blayney Brown
June 2010

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