J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Midlands 1830 > Birmingham and Coventry Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Midlands Riverbank with a Bridge and Buildings Beyond 1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Midlands Riverbank with a Bridge and Buildings Beyond’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 36 Recto:
A Midlands Riverbank with a Bridge and Buildings Beyond 1830
D22389
Turner Bequest CCXL 36
Pencil on white wove paper, 68 x 110 mm
Partial watermark ‘[Prince of Wales feathers]’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘36’ top left, upside down (now very faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCXL – 36’ bottom right/top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This scene remains unidentified, but is presumably in the Midlands given identified adjacent subjects. Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, it shows a bridge with three arches beyond what may be small boats on or beside a river, with a group of houses beyond to the left.
Finberg bracketed this page with folio 35 verso opposite (D22388), his usual indication of a double-page drawing, but the two sketches appear to be on different scales and to show different places.
Technical notes:
This leaf is affected by the extensive pale brown, mottled staining which extends throughout this particular gathering (folios 31–42; D22379–D22402) and also folios 30 and 43 recto and verso (D22377, D22378, D22403, D22404), as discussed in the Technical notes to the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Matthew Imms
August 2013

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Midlands Riverbank with a Bridge and Buildings Beyond 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-midlands-riverbank-with-a-bridge-and-buildings-beyond-r1148539, accessed 05 April 2026.