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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tamworth: Ladybridge, the Castle and St Editha's Church 1830

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Recto:
Tamworth: Ladybridge, the Castle and St Editha’s Church 1830
D22081
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 55b
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘R Bar | 18’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘6 4 3’ top right
Inscribed by ?A.J. Finberg in red ink ‘55b’ bottom left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXVIII – 55b’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, this drawing shows the view north-west to Ladybridge, west of Tamworth Castle, on the left, with St Editha’s Church on the right, with what appears to be an earlier bridge where the modern Bolebridge Street crossing now runs. The latter forms the eastern sector of a road system which also crosses the river a little to the west along Ankerdrive. These and other developments obscure the view. Turner’s inscription ‘6 4 3’ above the church indicates the sequence of windows along the corresponding sections of its clerestory.
There are related drawings on folio 56 verso opposite (D22080; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 55a), and on folios 57 verso–58 recto (D22082–D22083; CCXXXVIII 55c–56). For Turner’s England and Wales watercolour and other views of Tamworth, see under folio 52 verso (D22072; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 51c).
Technical notes:
Finberg noted: ‘This was a loose unnumbered leaf, but it appears to have belonged here originally.’1 This side and the verso (D22082; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 55c) are numbered in red ink, presumably by Finberg, rather than in Ruskin’s blue ink on the other leaves.

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.731.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Tamworth: Ladybridge, the Castle and St Editha’s Church 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-tamworth-ladybridge-the-castle-and-st-edithas-church-r1148722, accessed 19 September 2024.