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 > Devonshire Rivers, No.3, and Wharfedale ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Bridge, Possibly near Otley ?1816

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Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 68 Recto:
A Bridge, Possibly near Otley ?1816
D09812
Turner Bequest CXXXIV 20
Pencil on white wove paper with gilt edges, 179 x 254 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | 1811’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CXXXIV – 20’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This may be a Yorkshire view as opposed to a Devon one from the earlier 1814 phase of Turner’s use of this sketchbook (see the Introduction), but the reason for Finberg’s unqualified identification of this subject as a ‘Bridge near Otley’,1 the town nearest to Walter Fawkes’s home at Farnley Hall (see under folio 1 verso; D09790) is unclear. It does not show the more substantial medieval bridge on the River Wharfe in Otley itself, and there do not seem to be any likely candidates in the immediate vicinity. The bridge shown here appears to comprise four arches, with three shown clearly and a fourth apparently hidden behind bushes on the left, beyond the leftmost cutwater.
1
Finberg 1909, I, p.381.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
July 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Bridge, Possibly near Otley ?1816 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-a-bridge-possibly-near-otley-r1147428, accessed 24 April 2024.