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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Thames, London and South of England 1821 ... > River Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Tower of London from the River Thames c.1823-4

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Tower of London from the River Thames’ c.1823-4
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
The Tower of London from the River Thames c.1823–4
D17821
Turner Bequest CCIV 35
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 190 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘35’ top left, upside down (now very faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCIV – 35’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the Tower of London is seen from the River Thames, looking north-east, with the White Tower at the centre, St Thomas’s Tower and Traitors’ Gate towards the right, and the clock tower of the former Grand Storehouse towards the left. At the top right is a thumbnail sketch of the Tower in the distance beyond shipping.
This is one of a number of sketches which informed Turner’s watercolour of the Tower of about 1825 (private collection),1 as discussed in the entry for folio 34 recto (D17819), the closest to the finished design.
For other London and Thames views in the present book, see under folio 2 recto (D17775).

Matthew Imms
November 2014

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.358 no.515.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Tower of London from the River Thames c.1823–4 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-the-tower-of-london-from-the-river-thames-r1172528, accessed 20 February 2025.