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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > North Wales 1799-1801 > Lancashire and North Wales Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A River with a Stone Footbridge, among Mountains (?the Glaslyn near Beddgelert) 1799

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A River with a Stone Footbridge, among Mountains (?the Glaslyn near Beddgelert)’ 1799
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Recto:
A River with a Stone Footbridge, among Mountains (?the Glaslyn near Beddgelert) 1799
D01990
Turner Bequest XLV 50
Pencil and grey wash with scraping-out on white wove paper, 225 x 329 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XLV-50’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of a group of worked-up monochrome mountain studies in this book, all apparently made in North Wales; compare folios 7 verso (D01920) and 48 recto (D01987; Turner Bequest XLV 47). They all seem to be views in the Aberglaslyn Pass south of Beddgelert. The stone bridge shown here is apparently that which figures as the subject of a well-known watercolour study made on the spot by Thomas Girtin (1775–1802), probably in 1798 (British Museum, London).1
1
Greg Smith, Peter Bower, Anne Lyles and others, Thomas Girtin: The Art of Watercolour, exhibition catalogue, Tate Britain, London 2002, p.154 no.117, reproduced in colour.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by a later hand in pencil ‘12½ x 8¾’, the approximate dimensions of this sketchbook book in inches.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A River with a Stone Footbridge, among Mountains (?the Glaslyn near Beddgelert) 1799 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 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-river-with-a-stone-footbridge-among-mountains-the-glaslyn-r1177869, accessed 23 April 2024.