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 from the Warwick and Napton Canal Aqueduct over the River Avon 1830

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Warwick from the Warwick and Napton Canal Aqueduct over the River Avon’ 1830
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Verso:
Warwick from the Warwick and Napton Canal Aqueduct over the River Avon 1830
D22084
Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 56a
Pencil on white wove paper, 120 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘R Ba | 18’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sketches on adjacent pages mostly show Tamworth, but Finberg’s firm identification of the present view as among them incorrect. In fact the main view is of Warwick, with the distinctive profile of the castle, the spire of St Nicholas’s Church and the tower of St Mary’s, seen west-south-west from the three arches of the late eighteenth-century stone aqueduct carrying the Warwick and Napton Canal (now part of the Grand Union Canal) across the River Avon.1
There is a smaller view at the top left, which appears to show the aqueduct from the east. For several other views of Warwick earlier in this sketchbook, see under folio 38 verso (D22047). Another drawing showing a canal aqueduct is the view of Tamworth on folio 54 verso (D22076; Turner Bequest CCXXXVIII 53a).

Matthew Imms
August 2013

1
See ‘Avon Aqueduct, Warwick’, Our Transport Heritage, accessed 12 June 2013, http://www.transportheritage.com/find-heritage-locations.html?sobi2Task=sobi2Details&catid=144&sobi2Id=772.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Warwick from the Warwick and Napton Canal Aqueduct over the River Avon 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-from-the-warwick-and-napton-canal-aqueduct-over-the-r1148725, accessed 20 April 2024.