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 from the South; ?Peak Cavern, Castleton, or Another Peak District Cave ?1831

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bridgnorth from the South; ?Peak Cavern, Castleton, or Another Peak District Cave’ ?1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Verso:
Bridgnorth from the South; ?Peak Cavern, Castleton, or Another Peak District Cave ?1831
D22296
Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 78a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 191 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject 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 For Shrewsbury, as suggested by Finberg in 1909, see under folio 12 verso (D22172).
The view, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, is along the valley of the River Severn, looking north to Bridgnorth’s bridge, and continues across folio 80 recto opposite (D22297; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 79). There is a similar view on folio 1 recto (D22151), under which other sketches are mentioned, and on folios 77verso–78 recto (D22292, D22293; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 76a, 77) and the recto (D22295).
At the outer half of the leaf is a slight but vigorous sketch, apparently of a cave. Its orientation is unclear, but it may show the inside of Peak Cavern, below Peveril Castle at Castleton, as seen elsewhere in this sketchbook (see under folio 1 verso; D22152), or another Peak District cave.

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; confirmed by Ian Warrell in notes from 1993 and later in Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Bridgnorth from the South; ?Peak Cavern, Castleton, or Another Peak District Cave ?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-from-the-south-peak-cavern-castleton-or-another-r1148944, accessed 19 April 2024.