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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > East Sussex c.1806-20 > Hints River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Skinners Company Barge below a Bridge, and the Barge Master c.1815-18

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Skinners Company Barge below a Bridge, and the Barge Master’ c.1815-18
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Verso:
The Skinners Company Barge below a Bridge, and the Barge Master circa 1815–18
D10588
Turner Bequest CXLI 1a
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Skinners Compny Barge’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner shows one arch of the bridge, with figures below it. The same bridge, with more figures and barges, appears on folio 2 of the sketchbook (D10589). Turner’s inscription indicates the barge of the Skinners Company. Built in the eighteenth century, this vessel was typical of the ceremonial barges of the City livery companies that took part in river festivities like the Lord Mayor’s procession, coronations or bridge openings. The Skinners barge made an annual summer expedition to Richmond, where a reception was held at the Star and Garter Hotel at the top of Richmond Hill. After the opening of the new Waterloo Bridge in 1817, it set off from there, but Turner’s indications of the bridge itself are too slight to confirm whether it is Waterloo or Richmond. As well as the barge he has sketched the Barge Master with his ceremonial waterman’s coat with its full skirt and ermine cuffs, and square cap. His sketches were presumably made in preparation for his picture England: Richmond Hill, on the Prince Regent’s Birthday (Tate N00502)1 exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1819, since this includes a barge on the river, even if only in the distance and without specific details.
The Skinner’s barge was sold in 1858, and later served as the boat-house of the Queen’s College, Oxford, moored off Christ Church Meadows.2

David Blayney Brown
July 2011

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.106–7 no.140 (pl.145).
2
James Foster Wadmore, Some Account of the Worshipful Company of Skinners of London, Being the Guild or Fraternity of Corpus Christi, London 1902, pp.137–42.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Skinners Company Barge below a Bridge, and the Barge Master c.1815–18 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-skinners-company-barge-below-a-bridge-and-the-barge-r1131641, accessed 25 April 2024.