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

With the page turned vertically, Turner has used the top third for a scene on a flight of steps beside a substantial stone bridge, with two figures standing or leaning beside with an object such as a bag or basket at their feet while another appears to ascend with a child ‘crawling up’ according to Turner’s partially illegible inscription. If the last word is indeed ‘fruit’, the figures below may be selling it. The setting may be at Richmond upon Thames, where there are steps from the east bank of the River Thames, rising to buildings on the north side of the bridge. Many of the drawings in this sketchbook depict the Thames in the vicinity of Richmond (see the Introduction), and the idealised watercolour on folio 20 recto (D18623) may be a capriccio based on the bridge.