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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > England and Wales Colour Studies c.1825 ... > Studies for Published 'England and ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Bedford and the River Great Ouse c.1829

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Bedford and the River Great Ouse’ c.1829
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?Bedford and the River Great Ouse c.1829
D25243
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 121
Watercolour on white wove paper, 325 x 562 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 121’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Eric Shanes has tentatively linked this colour study with the finished watercolour Bedford of about 1829 (private collection),1 engraved in 1831 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04578, T05087),2 showing the view west along the River Great Ouse to the Town Bridge. He has also compared it compositionally to the oil sketch formerly known as ‘Scene on the Banks of a River’,3 now Dieppe: The Port from the Quai Henri IV and possibly dated 1827–8 (Tate N03385).4
The Bedford identification is likely to remain unconfirmed, particularly as there are no pencil sketches currently identified with which to compare it as an intermediate stage towards the England and Wales watercolour. It has been tentatively suggested that Tate D25227 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 105) might be another study for the subject.
See also the introductions to the present subsection of identified subjects and the overall England and Wales ‘colour beginnings’ grouping to which this work has been assigned.
There is another watercolour composition on the verso (D40262).

Matthew Imms
March 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.397 no.831.
2
Shanes 1997, pp.96, 105.
3
Shanes 1997, pp.98, 100, 105.
4
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.179 no.316, pl.319 (colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Bedford and the River Great Ouse c.1829 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2013, 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-bedford-and-the-river-great-ouse-r1144236, accessed 26 April 2024.