Joseph Mallord William Turner

The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge

1825

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Mortlake and Pulborough Sketchbook
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 113 × 187 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D18824
Turner Bequest CCXIII 82

Catalogue entry

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, there are two rapid sketches here, apparently both from south of the marquee erected over the coffer-dam around the site of the southernmost pier of the new London Bridge, for the foundation stone ceremony held on the riverbed on 15 June 1825. In the upper sketch, Southwark Bridge and the silhouetted dome of St Paul’s Cathedral are seen upstream to the west. The lower drawing seems to show the south side of the coffer-dam, with flags flying over the marquee. Compare the view on folio 81 verso opposite (D18823).
The ceremony and other studies relating to it at the beginning and end of this sketchbook are discussed in the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

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