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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Perspective lectures c.1809-28 > V. Miscellaneous Preparatory Perspective ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tracing of a Perspective Construction of Pulteney Bridge, Bath c.1810

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tracing of a Perspective Construction of Pulteney Bridge, Bath’ c.1810
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Tracing of a Perspective Construction of Pulteney Bridge, Bath circa 1810
D17082
Turner Bequest CXCV 112
Transfer ink on white wove paper, 560 x 760 mm
Watermarked ‘HAYES & WISE | 1799’
Inscribed by Ruskin in red ink ‘112’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This tracing was made from a perspective study of the north side of Robert Adam’s Pulteney Bridge, Bath (Tate D17081; Turner Bequest CXCV 111), drawn in connection with Turner’s lectures as Professor of Perspective at the Royal Academy. Turner based his drawing on an aquatint of ‘Pulteney Bridge from the Road’ by the younger Thomas Malton (1748–1804). There is another, incomplete tracing of the subject on the verso (D40007). Maurice Davies suggests that Turner may have left this series of drawings unfinished because they would be too small for lecturing.1 See Diagrams 58 and 59 (Tate D17083, D17084; Turner Bequest CXCV 113, 114) for the final versions.
1
Davies 1992, p.108 note 6.
Technical notes:
Peter Bower (unpublished notes)1 writes that the sheet is Imperial size paper made by John Hayes and John Wise, at Padsole Mill, Maidstone, Kent.
1
Notes in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
See Tate D40007.

Andrea Fredericksen
June 2004

Supported by The Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Revised by David Blayney Brown
January 2012

How to cite

Andrea Fredericksen, ‘Tracing of a Perspective Construction of Pulteney Bridge, Bath c.1810 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2004, revised by David Blayney Brown, January 2012, 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-tracing-of-a-perspective-construction-of-pulteney-bridge-r1136815, accessed 26 April 2024.