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 Bridgnorth: Looking down to the River Severn ?1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bridgnorth: Looking down to the River Severn’ ?1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 74 Recto:
Bridgnorth: Looking down to the River Severn ?1831
D22285
Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 73
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 191 mm
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Leonard]’ towards top left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘73’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXIX – 73’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, was identified as ‘Bridgenorth’ (sic) by A.J. Finberg (died 1939) and the watercolour and Turner scholar C.F. Bell (died 1966) in undated manuscript notes in copies of Finberg’s 1909 Inventory.1 It continues across folio 73 verso opposite (D22284; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 72a). The viewpoint is the hillside above the town’s bridge (on the other page), in the vicinity of Castle Terrace and the later Cliff Railway, with St Leonard’s Church to the north and the hills around High Rock on the opposite bank of the River Severn beyond. For other views of Bridgnorth, see under folio 1 recto (D22151).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
A.J. Finberg, undated MS notes in a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, vol.II, p.736; C.F. Bell, undated MS notes in another copy at the same location, vol.II, p.736; confimed by Ian Warrell in notes from 1993 and later in Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Bridgnorth: Looking down to the River Severn ?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-bridgnorth-looking-down-to-the-river-severn-r1148933, accessed 19 September 2024.