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

This is quite a scrappy sketch of a canal scene, with a figure in the left foreground and horses to the right. There is a single-arched bridge in the middle distance, centre and a twin-arched bridge further off to the right; above, rays of sun break through a clouded sky. The scene is possibly one on the Grand Union Canal, given the proximity of sketches at Cassiobury Park from the sketchbook. For the canal, see note to D12241; Turner Bequest CLV 2.

The overall composition and character of the landscape and subject are not dissimilar to those of other sketches from the same sketchbook (D12247, D12258; Turner Bequest CLV 6, 17), and also to a sketch of Moor Park in the River sketchbook (Tate D06071; Turner Bequest XCVI 76), which in turn provided the basis of a studio watercolour, More Park, near Watford, on the River Colne (Tate D18141; Turner Bequest CCVIII H)1 painted about 1822 for engraving in the Rivers of England. Moor Park overlooks the Grand Union Canal near Rickmansworth, and although there are no specific points of similarity between the sketches from the present book and that in the River sketchbook, the character of the landscape and the general concept of the composition appear very similar.