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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Scotland 1801-10 > Chester Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Chester: Houses and a Two-Arched Bridge, Seen from a River Bank 1801

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Chester: Houses and a Two-Arched Bridge, Seen from a River Bank’ 1801
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Recto:
?Chester: Houses and a Two–Arched Bridge, Seen from a River Bank 1801
D05111
Turner Bequest LXXXII 34
Pencil on white wove paper, 256 x 161 mm
Inscribed in pencil ‘31’ bottom right, descending vertically
Blind–stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘34’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXXXII – 34’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. The Turner scholar C.F. Bell denied that this drawing shows Chester and suggested Knaresborough, in Yorkshire.1 Since all the remaining drawings in this book show Chester or places in the north–west of England, predominantly Cheshire, it is unlikely that a Yorkshire view would have been interpolated here.
In the absence of definite evidence, it must be assumed that this is either Chester, or a place between that and Windermere (see under folio 31 recto; D05108), perhaps Preston. See also folios 35 recto and 36 recto (D05112, D05113).
1
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in a copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.220.
Verso:
Blank

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘?Chester: Houses and a Two–Arched Bridge, Seen from a River Bank 1801 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-chester-houses-and-a-two-arched-bridge-seen-from-a-river-r1178680, accessed 30 June 2024.