
Not on display
- Artist
- Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 914 × 1219 mm
frame: 1200 × 1510 × 130 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
- Reference
- N00557
Display caption
In this painting, Turner obscures Richmond bridge in morning mist. This gives prominence to the shady banks of the river and the bathers at its edge. A reviewer at the time said the ‘indistinct distance of mingled groves and edifices… leaves the imagination to wander over Richmond, and finish the picture from the suggestions of the painter’. He said less skilled artists would have exhausted the viewer with a focus on intricate detail.
Richmond bridge had opened in 1777. Commentators compared its classical grace to the paintings of Claude Lorrain, an artist who had a great influence on Turner.
Gallery label, July 2020
Does this text contain inaccurate information or language that you feel we should improve or change? We would like to hear from you.
Catalogue entry
73. [N00557] View of Richmond Hill and Bridge Exh. 1808
THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (557)
Canvas, 36 × 48 (81·5 × 122)
Coll. Turner Bequest 1856 (87, ‘Richmond Bridge’ 4'0" × 3'0"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1929.
Exh. Turner's gallery 1808; Tate Gallery 1931 (32); Venice and Rome 1948 (15, repr.); Rotterdam 1955 (52, repr.); Historic Richmond Town Hall, Richmond, Surrey, August–September 1959 (53); Australian tour 1960 (5).
Lit. Thornbury 1862, i, p. 349; 1877, p. 467; Armstrong 1902, p. 227; Whitley 1928, p. 140; Davies 1946, p. 187; Wilton 1979, pp. 118–19.
There are general views of the same scene in the ‘Shipwreck (No. 2 [N00459])’ and ‘Thames from Reading to Walton’ sketchbooks (LXXXVIII-14, running onto 15, and XCV-24). The ‘Hesperides (1)’ sketchbook contains two composition sketches for the picture, and a figure study related to that closest to the final picture (XCIII-35 verso, 37 verso and 38 respectively).
John Landseer (?) described this picture among those shown by Turner in his gallery in 1808 in the Review of Publications of Art for that year: Turner's ‘view of Richmond Hill and Bridge is taken from the Surry [sic] bank, looking up the Thames ... The most conspicuous feature in the picture is Richmond Bridge, of which, the sun being low in the horizon, the Surry end is faintly overshadowed. By obscuring the detail of Richmond itself in the mistiness of the morning; by introducing some sheep, and the simple incident of women bathing a child near the foreground—an incident which we deem worthy of the pastoral Muse of painting, and which, had it been met with in the morning pastorals of Theocritus, would have called forth general admiration—Mr. Turner has given a pastoral character to a scene of polished and princely retirement ... We feel delighted with the effects which we here behold “of incense breathing morn”. The indistinct distance of mingled groves and edifices with which Mr. Turner here presents us, leaves the imagination to wander over Richmond, and finish the picture from the suggestions of the painter, where another artist would have exhausted his subject, and perhaps the patience of his observers, by the attention which he would have required to the minute accuracy of his distant detail.’
Finberg, in a note now in the British Museum, suggested that the centre of the picture was worked on by Turner at a later date, and indeed the sky does seem to have been painted up to the edges of the more thinly painted trees, but Landseer's review suggests that the effect of the rising sun low over the hills was already there in 1808.
This picture was priced at £200 in a note, probably of c. 1810, in Turner's ‘Finance’ sketchbook (CXXII-36; for the date see Nos. 53 [T03869] and 56 [N00474]).
Published in:
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
Explore
- architecture(41,314)
-
- bridges and viaducts(4,130)
-
- bridge(3,996)
- recreational activities(2,837)
-
- bathing / swimming(221)
- river(7,970)
- sunshine(514)
- group(4,249)
- UK countries and regions(24,402)
-
- England(19,249)
- River Thames(733)
You might like
-
Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for ‘View of Richmond Hill and Bridge’
1805 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for ‘View of Richmond Hill and Bridge’
c.1805–8 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Richmond Bridge and Hill
1805 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Richmond Hill and Bridge
c.1816–19 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Views of Richmond Hill and Bridge
c.1816–19 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Richmond Bridge and Hill from Upstream, Fisherman on a Boat at Left
1805 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Richmond Bridge and Thames-Side Villas
c.1815–18 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent’s Birthday
exhibited 1819 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner The Thames and Richmond Bridge
c.1805 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Richmond Bridge
c.1815–18 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner The Thames from Richmond Hill, with Richmond Bridge, and Isleworth Church in the Distance
1805 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Richmond Bridge
c.1808–10 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner The Thames and Richmond Bridge, from the Surrey Bank
c.1805 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner The Thames from Richmond Hill, Looking East, with Richmond Bridge Glimpsed through Trees
1805 -
Joseph Mallord William Turner Two River Scenes, Richmond Bridge
c.1816–19