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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales and Isle of Wight 1795-1800 > Smaller South Wales Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Cardiff: The Castle and Bridge over the River Taff 1795

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cardiff: The Castle and Bridge over the River Taff’ 1795
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Recto:
Cardiff: The Castle and Bridge over the River Taff 1795
D00471
Turner Bequest XXV 10
Pencil on white wove paper, 130 x 205 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Cardiff’ bottom centre and ‘Timber’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘10’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XXV 10’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Although Cardiff Castle is known today as a brilliant Victorian fantasy created to the designs of William Burges for the 3rd Marquess of Bute, it was an ancient fortification, dating at least from the eleventh century and modified at different times throughout the middle ages. A finished watercolour of this subject is Tate D00702 (Turner Bequest XXVIII Q). Turner was to revisit the spot on his tour to Wales in 1798, when he made a similar pencil study in his Cyfarthfa sketchbook (Tate D01642; Turner Bequest XLI 13).
Verso:
Blank; grey colour smears; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Cardiff: The Castle and Bridge over the River Taff 1795 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-cardiff-the-castle-and-bridge-over-the-river-taff-r1140790, accessed 24 November 2024.