Joseph Mallord William Turner

Continuing with the subject explored on the previous page, folio 81 recto (D17345), here Turner describes a view of Rochester in Kent as observed from the southwest.1 At right is the distinctive tower of Rochester Castle, with the bridge across the river Medway clearly visible to its left. Turner seems likely to have recorded this view immediately prior to structural alterations made to the medieval bridge in the 1820s provoked by concerns about silt deposits in the riverbed.2 Much of the page is blank, and in fact very little attention is paid to the river itself in this drawing, which lends its focus to the architectural forms which shape the landscape.

For a list of the other pages in the present sketchbook which consider the subject of Rochester, see the entry for folio 6 verso (D17217).