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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Paul's Cathedral, St Magnus's Church, the Monument and the Custom House c.1823-4

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Paul's Cathedral, St Magnus's Church, the Monument and the Custom House’ c.1823-4
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Verso:
St Paul’s Cathedral, St Magnus’s Church, the Monument and the Custom House c.1823–4
D17822
Turner Bequest CCIV 35a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 190 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the main view shows a cluster of spires and domes on the left and the blank façade of the Custom House, looking north from the River Thames, as so frequently shown in Turner’s Thames sketchbooks. See the overall Introduction to the present section for Turner’s interest in the waterfront below Old London Bridge at this time.
Finberg’s mention of the ‘Shot Tower’1 which then stood on the south bank is apparently in error. He also coupled this sketch with that on folio 36 recto opposite (D17823), as if they were continuous, but the only element to overlap is the south-west turret of the White Tower, carried over from the general view of the Tower of London on the other page. At the top left is a detail of shipping, and at the top right a slighter reprise of the main view.
For other London and Thames views in the present book, see under folio 2 recto (D17775).

Matthew Imms
November 2014

1
Finberg 1909, I, p.619.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘St Paul’s Cathedral, St Magnus’s Church, the Monument and the Custom House c.1823–4 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-st-pauls-cathedral-st-magnuss-church-the-monument-and-the-r1172529, accessed 20 September 2024.