Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Thames and Richmond Bridge, from the Surrey Bank

c.1805

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Shipwreck (2) Sketchbook
Medium
Pen and ink on paper
Dimensions
Support: 119 × 189 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D05441
Turner Bequest LXXXVIII 14

Catalogue entry

This sketch is continued on folio 15 of this sketchbook (D05442) to form a panoramic view of the Thames towards James Paine’s bridge (built 1774–7). This is much the same view as appears in Turner’s painting View of Richmond Hill and Bridge exhibited in Turner’s Gallery in 1808 but begun earlier (Tate N00557).1 However, it is more probably a study from nature than for the picture, the composition drawings for which are in the Hesperides (1) and Thames from Reading to Walton sketchbooks (Tate D05827, D05831, D05832; Turner Bequest XCIII 35 verso, 37 verso, 38; Tate D05928; Turner Bequest XCV 24) – the latter, as David Hill has observed,2 splashed with oil indicating that Turner had it beside his easel as he worked. Turner spent much time drawing the Thames during the summer of 1805.
1
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.56 no.73 (pl.83).
2
David Hill, Turner on the Thames: River Journeys in the year 1805, New Haven and London 1993, p.58.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
February 2006

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