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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > West Country 1811 > Ivy Bridge to Penzance Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Bridge between East and West Looe 1811

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Bridge between East and West Looe’ 1811
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Recto:
The Bridge between East and West Looe 1811
D08881
Turner Bequest CXXV 14
Pencil on white wove paper, 166 x 208 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXV – 14’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The medieval bridge, since replaced, is seen to the south from the west bank of the River Looe. East Looe is to the left, with the low, castellated tower of St Martin’s Church, and West Looe to the right, with the tall, narrow tower of St Nicholas’s. Apart from additional buildings on the hillsides the view remains much the same today.
Following the last of a sequence of Plymouth views on folio 14 recto (Tate D08880; Turner Bequest CXXV 13), Turner travelled west along the Cornish coast. This is the first of four drawings of Looe; see also folios 16 verso, 17 verso and 18 verso (D08883, D08885, D08887; CXXV 15a, 16a, 17a). There are also studies in the contemporary Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (between Tate D08580 and D08588; Turner Bequest CXXIII 111a, 115a; and Tate D08614; Turner Bequest CXXIII 129a).
Technical notes:
There is a dark stain at the top centre and light brown spotting elsewhere. There is a closed tear across sky from the middle to the right-hand edge, presumably the reason for the whole leaf being stuck down on a sheet of slightly rougher wove paper, attached to a narrow stub. There is slight brown mottling to the verso of the blank backing sheet.
Verso:
Blank (being the verso of a sheet on which the accessioned drawing is laid down, as described in the technical notes above).

Matthew Imms
February 2011

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Bridge between East and West Looe 1811 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-bridge-between-east-and-west-looe-r1137362, accessed 18 April 2024.