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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Cheshire, Derbyshire, North Wales ... > Derbyshire Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Viator's Bridge, Milldale, Dovedale 1808

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Viator's Bridge, Milldale, Dovedale’ 1808
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Verso:
Viator’s Bridge, Milldale, Dovedale 1808
D07233
Turner Bequest CVI 78a
Pen and ink on white wove paper, 108 x 185 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook inverted. The identification of this subject was suggested by Eric Shanes.1 Technically, the drawing is uniform with that on folio 85 verso (D07241; Turner Bequest CVI 82a). Turner probably made Dovedale part of his route from the Midlands to Knutsford and Tabley at the beginning of his tour in the summer of 1808; see Introduction to the sketchbook. The river is full of trout, and the medieval packhorse bridge at Milldale had been described by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler (1653) and subsequently named after the author’s assumed name of ‘viator’ (traveller).

David Blayney Brown
July 2010

1
In conversation with the author.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Viator’s Bridge, Milldale, Dovedale 1808 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-viators-bridge-milldale-dovedale-r1129657, accessed 30 June 2024.