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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Severn Valley, Chester and Peak District ... > Worcester and Shrewsbury Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Chester Castle and St Bridget's Church; the Old Dee Bridge ?1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Chester Castle and St Bridget's Church; the Old Dee Bridge’ ?1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 63 Verso:
Chester Castle and St Bridget’s Church; the Old Dee Bridge ?1831
D22268
Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 63a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 191 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Ian Warrell has noted, the main view shows Chester Castle.1 On the left, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, is the medieval curtain wall around the inner bailey on the south-west side, above what is now Castle Drive; the rest of the view, encompassing the then recent redevelopment of the site in classical style, runs across folio 64 recto opposite (D22269), under which the subject is explored in more detail; St Bridget’s Church also appears there.
The other half of the page, turned vertically, is occupied by sketches across two registers: below is a view of the Old Dee Bridge (again, as noted by Warrell),2 looking east from below the castle; above to the right is a continuation of the southern end of the bridge, together with some slight architectural and landscape details, presumably recorded nearby. For other views of Chester, see under folio 14 verso (D22176).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
Ian Warrell, notes from 1993 and later in Tate catalogue files.
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Chester Castle and St Bridget’s Church; the Old Dee Bridge ?1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-chester-castle-and-st-bridgets-church-the-old-dee-bridge-r1148914, accessed 23 April 2024.