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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Midlands 1830 > Kenilworth Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Warwick Castle from the Avon Bridge 1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Warwick Castle from the Avon Bridge’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 39 Recto:
Warwick Castle from the Avon Bridge 1830
D22048
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 39
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘39’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXVIII – 39’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a continuation of the view of the River Avon and Warwick Castle from the west on folio 38 verso opposite (D22047), under which the subject is discussed; the double-page sketch was recognised by John Ruskin and others1 as the source of a watercolour of about 1830 (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester),2 engraved in 1832 for Turner’s Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impressions: T04594, T04595).
On this page Caesar’s Tower, the gatehouse and Guy’s Tower are shown, with the pinnacled tower of St Mary’s Church beyond (drawn twice) in the town to the north-west. In the foreground only a couple of stone balusters of the bridge are shown, and in the watercolour there are extensive repairs to the parapet in progress, but this was probably artistic licence on Turner’s part, as no such work is mentioned in the castle’s records.3

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Cook and Wedderburn 1904, p.566; see also Finberg 1909, II, p.730; Sewter 1952 p.20; Hawcroft 1966, p.27; Shanes 1979, p.156; Hartley 1984, p.48; and Nugent and Croal 1997, p.84.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.398 no.841, reproduced.
3
See Hartley 1984, p.48, and Nugent and Croal 1997, p.84.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Warwick Castle from the Avon Bridge 1830 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, 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-warwick-castle-from-the-avon-bridge-r1148689, accessed 19 April 2024.