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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Cyfarthfa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner General View of Cyfarthfa Ironworks ?from the South-West 1798

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘General View of Cyfarthfa Ironworks ?from the South-West’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
General View of Cyfarthfa Ironworks ?from the South-West 1798
D01629
Turner Bequest XLI 1
Pencil on white wove paper, 287 x 456 mm
Watermark ‘1794 | J Whatman’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Cafara Works’ bottom right, and ‘X’ twice near centre, on chimneys
Inscribed by the Executors of the Turner Bequest, George Jones, Charles Lock Eastlake and John Prescott Knight, in ink ‘No 209 Geo Jones’ and in pencil ‘C.L.E.’ and ‘JPK’ top left on strip of paper pasted along top edge
Inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘Left for Exhibition JR’ top centre on strip of paper pasted along top edge
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XLI – 1’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of a sequence of careful drawings in this book (see also D01630–D01632; Turner Bequest XLI 2, 3, 4) made in response to a commission from Anthony Bacon, of Newbury, Berkshire (1772–1827), noted on a flyleaf of the contemporary Hereford Court sketchbook (Tate D01249; Turner Bequest XXXVIII, opposite inside back cover). Bacon’s father had been responsible for setting up the works on the banks of the River Taf in 1765; Richard Crawshay leased them in 1786, and took over ownership in 1794.
Bacon was, then, understandably concerned to possess a record of an important family achievement that was passing out of his control. By 1806 Cyfarthfa was the largest ironworks in the world, and it continued to expand throughout the nineteenth century, one of the most important early industrial sites in Britain. Afflicted by labour disputes in the 1870s, is converted to steel production in the 1880s, but was virtually abandoned by 1910. It was demolished in 1926. Cyfarthfa Castle, built in the baronial style by William Crawshay II in 1825, survives today. Its grounds are a public park.
The bridge seen in the drawing was built in 1793, cast from the same pattern as the earlier Pont-y-Cafnau.1 It was demolished probably as late as 1960.
1
See Stephen Hughes, The Newcarnen Bulletin, no.123, August 1982, p.8.
Technical notes:
The sheet is stained, with a line of grey-blue paint along the lower edge. A strip of paper 24 mm wide has been pasted along the top edge.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram; inscribed in a later (twentieth-century) hand in pencil ‘38’.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘General View of Cyfarthfa Ironworks ?from the South-West 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, 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-general-view-of-cyfarthfa-ironworks-from-the-south-west-r1173249, accessed 23 April 2024.