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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge 1816

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Verso:
Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge 1816
D11503
Turner Bequest CXLVII 37a
Pencil on white wove paper, 125 x 206 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘yello[w]’, ‘S’, ‘Dark’, ‘V D’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge spans the River Lune on the main route between Yorkshire and the Lake District, and is one of the finest medieval bridges in Britain. This sketch records the view from downstream (south). Turner took an exceptionally detailed interest in the subject in 1816 and made other sketches in the Yorkshire 2 and Yorkshire 5 sketchbooks (Tate D11128–D11127, D11126; Turner Bequest CXLV 60–59a, 59, and Tate D11527, D11526; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 5, 4c).
This sketch is inverted in relation to the main sequence of subjects in the sketchbook, having been made towards the end of Turner’s itinerary, as he worked backwards through the nearly full book, filling up blank pages. There are a few lines of continuation on folio 38 recto opposite (D11504).

David Hill
February 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge 1816 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 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-kirkby-lonsdale-bridge-r1143638, accessed 20 September 2024.