Joseph Mallord William Turner Trees by the River Thames: Bridge in the Distance 1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Trees by the River Thames: Bridge in the Distance
1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Trees by the River Thames: Bridge in the Distance 1805
D05950
Turner Bequest XCV 46
Turner Bequest XCV 46
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 257 x 368 mm
Stamped in black ‘XCV 46’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XCV 46’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
Exhibited Drawings, National Gallery, London, various dates to 1904 (689), as ‘Bridge at Cowley, near Crediton’.
1938
Display of Watercolours, National Gallery, London, December 1938–September 1939 (frame 4, as ‘Richmond Bridge seen through trees’).
1958
Eight Centuries of Landscape and Natural History in European Watercolours 1180–1920, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, April 1958 (61).
1961
J.W.M. [sic] Turner 1775–1851: Watercolours: On Loan to the National Gallery of Victoria on the Occasion of its Centenary from the Turner Bequest by Courtesy of the Trustees and Director of the British Museum, London, with the Assistance of the British Council, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, September–October 1961, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, October–November 1961 (6).
1963
Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, September–October 1963, Museum of Fine Arts of Houston, Texas, November 1963, M.H. de Young Memorial Museum, San Francisco, December 1963–January 1964, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio, January–March 1964, William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City, Missouri, March–April 1964, Brooklyn Museum, New York, May 1964, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June–July 1964 (11).
1964
Loan of Turner Watercolours from the British Museum, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, December 1964–January 1965, University of Nottingham Art Gallery, January–March 1965 (no number).
1969
A Decade of English Naturalism 1810–1820, Norwich Castle Museum, November–December 1969, Victoria and Albert Museum, London, January–February 1970 (43).
1970
Turner: Watercolours Lent by the British Museum, Musée Provisoire d’Art Moderne, Brussels, November 1970–January 1971 (6).
1972
J.M.W. Turner: Gemälde, Aquarelle, Gemäldegalerie Neuer Meister, Dresden, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, 1972 (46).
1973
Turner (1775–1851). desenhos, aguarelos e oléos / Drawings, Watercolours and Oil Paintings, Fundaçâo Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon 1973 (12).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (34).
1980
Turner 1775–1851: Drawings and Watercolours of British River Scenes from the British Museum, Bankside Gallery, London, November–December 1980 (32).
1983
J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 1983–January 1984 (116).
1988
Summer Miscellany: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Clore Gallery, Tate Gallery, London, July–October 1988 (no number).
1990
Painting and Poetry: Turner’s ‘Verse Book’ and his Work of 1804–1812, Tate Gallery, London, June–September 1990 (20).
1997
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, March–June 1997 (32).
1997
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: A Tate Gallery Collection Exhibition, Yokohama Museum of Art, June–August 1997, Fukuoka Art Museum, September–October 1997, Nagoya City Art Museum, October–December 1997 (26).
2006
Turner and the Natural World, Tate Britain, London, April–October 2006 (no number).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.247, XCV 46, as ‘Scene on the Thames’.
1961
J. Isaacs, J.W.M. [sic] Turner 1775–1851: Watercolours: On Loan to the National Gallery of Victoria on the Occasion of its Centenary from the Turner Bequest by Courtesy of the Trustees and Director of the British Museum, London, with the Assistance of the British Council, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1961, p.9 reproduced.
1963
Edward Croft-Murray, Turner Watercolors from The British Museum: A Loan Exhibition Circulated by the Smithsonian Institution, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 1963, pp.9, 29 reproduced.
1969
John Gage, Colour in Turner: Poetry and Truth, London 1969, p.37.
1969
John Gage, A Decade of English Naturalism 1810–1820, exhibition catalogue, Norwich Castle Museum 1969, p.24.
1973
Norman Reid, Andrew Wilton and Luke Herrmann, Turner {1775 / 1851}: desenhos, aguarelas e óleos / Drawings, Watercolours and Oil Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon 1973, p.26.
1975
Luke Herrmann, Turner: Paintings, Watercolours, Prints & Drawings, London 1975, pp.16, 98 reproduced pl.50, 228.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.40 reproduced.
1980
Michael Spender and Malcolm Fry, Turner at the Bankside Gallery: Catalogue of an Exhibition of Drawings & Water-colours of British River Scenes from the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Bankside Gallery, London 1980, pp.72, 73 reproduced.
1982
Evelyn Joll and Martin Butlin, L’opera completa di Turner 1793–1829, Milan 1982, p.85.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.117.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolours in the Clore Gallery, London 1987, p.55, reproduced in colour pl.20.
1990
Andrew Wilton and Rosalind Mallord Turner, Painting and Poetry: Turner’s ‘Verse Book’ and his Work of 1804–1812, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, pp.46 reproduced in colour, 122 reproduced.
1993
David Hill, Turner on the Thames: River Journeys in the Year 1805, New Haven and London 1993, pp.95 reproduced in colour pl.133, 170, as ‘Richmond Bridge from the Middlesex bank’.
1997
David Blayney Brown in David Blayney Brown, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Evelyn Benesch and others, Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibition catalogue, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna 1997, pp.29, 170 reproduced in colour.
1997
David Blayney Brown, in David B[layney] Brown, Yasuhide Shimbata and Hideko Numata, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: A Tate Gallery Collection Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama Museum of Art 1997, p.74 reproduced in colour.
2001
David Hill, ‘Thames Sketches, 1805’, in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann eds., The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.334.
This is a right-hand page from the sketchbook. Finberg notes that when exhibited at the National Gallery the subject was ‘probably erroneously’ described as Cowley, near Crediton, Devon. Gage compares this ‘very exceptional watercolour of a frieze of trees and a bridge’ to an oil sketch Trees beside the River, with Bridge in the Middle Distance (Tate N02692)1 while Butlin and Joll compare it to another oil sketch (Tate N05519)2 with a tentative identification as Kew Bridge. Hill illustrates it as Richmond, and from the Middlesex bank, but this too seems doubtful.
With quick brushwork and informal, unstructured design this watercolour has been widely seen as representing Turner’s most naturalistic, spontaneous treatment of Thames scenery while living at Isleworth. Wilton, on the other hand, argues for ‘a sophistication of purpose that goes rather further than that of a direct plein-air sketch’ and notes the similarity of the wooded setting to others that Turner used for classical and literary subjects.3
Verso:
Blank, save for traces of blue watercolour.
David Blayney Brown
February 2009
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘Trees by the River Thames: Bridge in the Distance 1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www