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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Severn Valley, Chester and Peak District ... > Worcester and Shrewsbury Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Grandstand at Worcester Racecourse; a Bridge with a Street Beyond; Worcester from the North ?1831

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Grandstand at Worcester Racecourse; a Bridge with a Street Beyond; Worcester from the North’ ?1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 83 Recto:
The Grandstand at Worcester Racecourse; a Bridge with a Street Beyond; Worcester from the North ?1831
D22303
Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 82
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 191 mm
Partial watermark ‘nard | 20’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Timber’ towards top left, ‘[?White P Ferry] at Worcester’ towards top centre, ‘[?C... | Arms]’ on building centre right, and ‘[?S... k...y]’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘82’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXIX – 82’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the upper view is north-east to the grandstand at the racecourse at Pitchcroft, on or near the site of the present stand beside the River Severn on the north side of Worcester, with the furled sails of a boat to the right. At the bottom left is a view in the other direction down the river towards Worcester itself, as seen in the two sketches including the grandstand on folio 82 verso opposite (D22302; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 81a); compare also folio 5 recto (D22158).
In between, across the middle of the page is a sketch which appears to have been made previously, with the Worcester views fitted around it. It shows a street with a small bridge in the foreground, an inn beyond on the right labelled ‘[?C... | Arms]’, and a building a little further down on the opposite side with a cupola or clock tower. The word below, which may identify the location, is as yet to be deciphered.
This page has been related in passing to the watercolour Worcester of about 1834 (British Museum, London),1 engraved in 1835 for the Picturesque Views in England and Wales (Tate impression: T06117), although the composition is based on the sketches of the cathedral from the south on folios 81 verso and the verso of the present leaf (D22300, D22304; Turner Bequest CCXXXIX 80a, 82a). For other views of Worcester, see under folio 2 verso (D22154).

Matthew Imms
April 2014

1
Wilton 1979, p.401 no.862, reproduced; see also Shanes 1979, p.156, and Shanes 1990, p.286 note 185.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Grandstand at Worcester Racecourse; a Bridge with a Street Beyond; Worcester from the North ?1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-grandstand-at-worcester-racecourse-a-bridge-with-a-r1148951, accessed 20 April 2025.