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 ... > Old London Bridge Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Shipping on the River Thames off the Tower of London ?1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Shipping on the River Thames off the Tower of London’ ?1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
Shipping on the River Thames off the Tower of London ?1824
D17857
Turner Bequest CCV 12a
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 162 mm
Part watermark ‘lls | 1’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Beyond a moored Thames barge, the Tower of London is seen across the river to the north-east. A more detailed drawing from a similar angle in the contemporary River sketchbook (Tate D17819; Turner Bequest CCIV 34) was the most direct source for the watercolour of The Tower of London of about 1825 (private collection),1 engraved in 1831 for The Literary Souvenir (Tate impression: T06137). The fortress is seen again on folio 13 verso (D17859).
More than half the drawings in this sketchbook show the River Thames around Old London Bridge, and are likely to date from 1824; see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
December 2014

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

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Shipping on the River Thames off the Tower of London ?1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 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-shipping-on-the-river-thames-off-the-tower-of-london-r1172568, accessed 21 November 2024.