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

The rapidly sketched main drawing is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, with a smaller study framed by pencil likes at the top right, reprising and extending the scene. The viewpoint is the Thames foreshore on the south bank below Old London Bridge, with shipping moored and beached at low tide, and various attendant figures. Upriver on the opposite bank to the north-west in the distance of the smaller view are the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and the church spire of St Dunstan-in-the-East, the latter barely noticeable among the masts but for Turner’s note above it.

For other London views in this sketchbook, see under folio 10 verso (D20748).