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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Tour of Yorkshire 1816 > Yorkshire 5 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge 1816

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge’ 1816
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Verso:
Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge 1816
D11526
Turner Bequest CXLVIII 4c
Pencil on white wove paper, 173 x 260 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Sky Light’, ‘V Dark’
Inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘CXLVIII 4c’ bottom left
 
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 another large sketch from slightly further to the left on folio 4 recto opposite (D11527; Turner Bequest CXLVIII 5); other sketches in the Yorkshire 2 sketchbook (Tate D11128, D11127, D11126; Turner Bequest CXLV 60, 59a, 58); and one from a similar aspect to this in the Yorkshire 4 sketchbook (Tate D11503; Turner Bequest CXLVII 37a). The present writer has dated Turner’s sketches of Kirkby Lonsdale to Friday 9 August and Saturday 10 August 1816.

David Hill
May 2009

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge 1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-r1143663, accessed 26 April 2024.