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

This page comprised a miscellaneous range of views. With the page turned vertically, at the top is a prospect of a town beyond a low, single-arched bridge with church towers to the left and what appear to be industrial chimneys to the right. The subject is uncertain, although industrial Manchester, through which Turner passed on his way to Scotland in 1831, has been suggested;1 for other views in this sketchbook see under folio 12 recto (D22171).

Below, framed by horizontal pencil lines, is a view of a bridge with two large arches, with what may be buildings to the left, above which the sun is seen through the smoke which Turner notes at this point. The view is unidentified, but might again be Manchester. Thomas Ardill has suggested that Turner rode on the new Liverpool and Manchester Railway as he approached Scotland in 1831; see his Introduction to the ‘Scotland 1831’ section of the present catalogue.2 It is possible that Turner’s inscription reads ‘Smoke of the | Engine’, and that the emphatic upright form is the smoke-stack of a locomotive. If so, the two-arched bridge may be that carrying the track over the River Irwell, just west of the original Manchester terminus on Liverpool Road (now part of Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry);3 the original bridge survives, now closely flanked by two others. An anonymous painting of about 1830 of The ‘Rocket’ (Liverpool and Manchester Railway Train) Crossing the Bridge over the River Irwell shows the structure in its original setting (National Trust, Greenway, Devon). Less certain still, there appear to be the capital letters ‘LM’ in a position which could correspond to a carriage, which might be abbreviations of signage of a carriage’s livery. In all, the evidence is too slight to enable a definite conclusion. What might be the same bridge appears on folio 16 recto (D22179). For another locomotive-like form, see folio 25 recto (D22194); another slight sketch, on folio 85 recto (D22307; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 84) might also show the railway.

Above to the right of this second view appears to be a rapid study of at least one figure, perhaps observed in the vicinity. The two views would have been made in the space left by the existing sketches towards the gutter. At the bottom left, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation and at right-angles to those already discussed, is a continuation of the view of Chester looking west along the River Dee on folio 59 recto opposite (D22259). The square tower outlined in this section is that of Chester Cathedral.

As Ian Warrell has noted, at the bottom right, with the book turned the other way, is a hasty study of the Georgian Crescent at Buxton (with its rusticated arcade and giant pilasters above), with St John the Baptist’s Church in the distance4 to the north-west. Turner has noted ‘5’ bays on the flat south-eastern façade at the west end of the crescent, having only recorded one in any detail, ‘6’ being the corresponding number of pilasters; he apparently miscounted the twenty-nine bays on the crescent itself as ‘33’. For other views of Buxton and the landscape to its east see under folio 52 verso (D22246).