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 ... > Mortlake and Pulborough Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge, with Construction Work 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge, with Construction Work’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 88 Verso:
The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge, with Construction Work 1825
D18833
Turner Bequest CCXIII 86a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 187 mm
Part watermark ‘R Bar | 18’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation the marquee erected over the coffer-dam around the site of the southernmost pier of the new London Bridge, for the foundation stone ceremony held on the riverbed on 15 June 1825, is shown to the south-east on the right, with Old London Bridge downstream beyond. There appear to be cranes or gantries around further coffer-dams. The view is continued to the left on folio 89 recto (D18834; Turner Bequest CCXIII 87) and to the right on folio 85 verso (D18831).
The ceremony and other studies relating to it at the beginning and end of this sketchbook are discussed in the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The London Bridge Foundation Stone Ceremony: The Marquee beside Old London Bridge, with Construction Work 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 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-the-london-bridge-foundation-stone-ceremony-the-marquee-r1172959, accessed 16 April 2024.