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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North of England 1797-1801 > Tweed and Lakes Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Longthwaite Bridge, Borrowdale 1797

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Longthwaite Bridge, Borrowdale’ 1797
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
Longthwaite Bridge, Borrowdale 1797
D01090
Turner Bequest XXXV 88
Pencil on white wove paper, 274 x 370 mm
Part watermark ‘1796’
Blind-stamped Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre (within the drawing)
Stamped in black ‘XXXV 88’ bottom left, descending vertically
Turner scholar David Hill suggests that this leaf belongs immediately after folio 32 recto (D01024; Turner Bequest 22). Drawn with the page turned horizontally, it records the southernmost point of Turner’s excursion from Keswick to Borrowdale. A finished watercolour of this subject was made presumably for ‘Mr Knowles’ as recorded on the verso; it was subsequently in the collection of Lord Joicey, and now in an American private collection, much faded.1 Two smaller versions of the subject are known. The artist’s reliance on the drawing for these various watercolours perhaps explains its present battered condition.
1
Not in Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979; see Hill 1996, pl.161 (colour).
Technical notes:
The leaf is stained, creased and torn.
Verso:
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Mr Knowles’; stained with red chalk; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
August 2010

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Longthwaite Bridge, Borrowdale 1797 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-longthwaite-bridge-borrowdale-r1150199, accessed 25 April 2024.