Joseph Mallord William Turner

The page contains a sketch, drawn horizontally, of a multi-arched and buttressed bridge over a river, with buildings on the bridge. Finberg noted it simply as ‘Bridge, with houses on it’,1 but the location has been confirmed as Poissy.2 (For further information on the town, see under folio 86 recto; D23868.) The structure corresponds to the old bridge, which had buildings, including mills, upon it. Ruined portions of the bridge remain in the present day, after it was destroyed in the Second World War.3

As well as the shapes of the bridge and buildings, Turner conveys river banks leading down to the water, vegetation and, with a few vertical lines at lower centre, reflections in the water.