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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern ... > Rivers Meuse and Moselle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Riverside or Canal Scene 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Riverside or Canal Scene’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 170 Recto:
Riverside or Canal Scene 1824
D19881
Turner Bequest CCXVI 164
Pencil on white wove paper, 78 x 118 mm
Watermark ‘[smith &] allnut | [18]22’
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘164’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVI–164’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Rendered with a brevity of line, here Turner pictures part of a riverside scene. A barge can be seen with its sails up high at left while a solitary figure stands atop a quayside wall at right. The surrounding environment is left blank, Turner drawing in no other aspect of the physical location in which the figure and vessels are situated. This composition, most probably the chance result of the artist moving on to sketch another view or perhaps finding this prospect lacking, is striking nonetheless.
Verso:
Blank, with the exception of a single pencil stroke.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Riverside or Canal Scene 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-riverside-or-canal-scene-r1174676, accessed 19 September 2024.