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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Severn Valley, Chester and Peak District ... > Worcester and Shrewsbury Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Buxton from the South-West; a Two-Arched Bridge and Hills, Possibly in the Peak District ?1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Buxton from the South-West; a Two-Arched Bridge and Hills, Possibly in the Peak District’ ?1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Recto:
Buxton from the South-West; a Two-Arched Bridge and Hills, Possibly in the Peak District ?1831
D22257
Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 58
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 191 mm
Partial watermark ‘R Ba | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘2’ towards centre right and ‘3’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘58’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXIX – 58’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Ian Warrell has noted, the right-hand half of the page is a view of Buxton with the cupola of St John’s Church with the south-west portico of the Duke of Devonshire’s stables beyond and the Crescent to the right.1 The stables, subsequently (with the addition of a vast dome) the Devonshire Royal Hospital, now house the Buxton campus of the University of Derby.2 These isolated features are now surrounded by later developments in the valley.
The view is from the south-west, from the hillside in the vicinity of the Terret. The present section of the drawing is a continuation from folio 56 recto (D22253), where the rocky hillside foreground is shown. For other views of Buxton and the landscape to its east see under folio 52 verso (D22246).
The vigorous marks to left are a continuation from a rough, unidentified landscape sketch on folio 57 verso opposite (D22256).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
Ian Warrell, notes from 1993 and later in Tate catalogue files.
2
See ‘About the Dome’, At the Dome, accessed 29 October 2013, http://www.atthedome.co.uk/about.html.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Buxton from the South-West; a Two-Arched Bridge and Hills, Possibly in the Peak District ?1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, 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-buxton-from-the-south-west-a-two-arched-bridge-and-hills-r1148903, accessed 23 May 2025.