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 and Yorkshire 1814-17 > Devon Rivers, No.1 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Barnstaple Bridge 1814

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Barnstaple Bridge’ 1814
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 66 Recto:
Barnstaple Bridge 1814
D09550
Turner Bequest CXXXII 66
Pencil on white wove paper, 90 x 152 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘16’ left of centre below bridge
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘66’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXII – 66’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Eric Shanes has recognised this as a view of Barnstaple Bridge, with its sixteen arches over the River Taw as indicated by Turner’s inscription, which Finberg misidentified as the twenty-four-arched bridge at nearby Bideford.1 At the top right is what appears to be a brief continuation of buildings, boats and trees from the right of the main sketch. Shanes relates the sketch to a watercolour study (Tate D25443; Turner Bequest CCLXIII) with a sixteen-arched bridge juxtaposed with a spire and a boat under construction to the right, apparently taken from the half-page sketch on folio 70 verso (D09555). The drawings in between, on folios 67 recto, 68 recto, 69 recto and 70 recto (D09551–D09554), noted by Finberg as the ‘same bridge’ are therefore also identifiable as of Barnstaple Bridge and its surroundings. The two drawings of a similar bridge on folio 79 recto and verso (D09564, D09565) do indeed, as Finberg suggested, show Bideford, as the latter sketch is annotated ‘24’.2
As noted in this sketchbook’s Introduction, Turner had visited relatives in Barnstaple on his 1811 West Country tour. The views on folios 64 recto and 65 recto (D09548, D09549) are also apparently of the town.
The present page was exhibited in Light into Colour: Turner in the South West at St Ives and Plymouth in 2006.3
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.374.
2
Shanes 1997, pp.59, 92 note 2 under no.40; for the watercolour, see p.58 no.39, reproduced (colour).
3
Sketchbook noted in ‘List of Works’ in Sam Smiles, Light into Colour: Turner in the South West, exhibition catalogue, Tate St Ives 2006, p.55, but folio not specified; page reproduced on exhibition microsite, Tate, accessed 10 June 2014, http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-st-ives/exhibition/light-colour-turner-south-west/light-colour-landscape-art/light-0.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
June 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Barnstaple Bridge 1814 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-barnstaple-bridge-r1147097, accessed 19 September 2024.