- Artist
- Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
- Medium
- Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions
- Support: 905 × 1210 mm
frame: 1138 × 1457 × 82 mm - Collection
- Tate
- Acquisition
- Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
- Reference
- N01992
Display caption
The first steamboat built on the River Thames was constructed in 1832 near Waterloo Bridge. Here two steamboats are moored at Hungerford Pier, belching smoke into air already polluted by industry.
Steamboats were not universally welcome on the Thames. Their wash eroded its banks, paddle wheels churned its filthy water, and their traffic competed with livery barges and wherries. Parliamentary committees in 1831 and 1837–8 discussed disputes with the Watermen’s Company. A commission considered urban smoke pollution in 1829. Cholera epidemics beginning in 1831–2 were attributed to ‘miasma’ from contaminated water.
Gallery label, November 2022
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Catalogue entry
523. [N01992] The Thames above Waterloo Bridge c. 1830–5
THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (1992)
Canvas, 35 5/8 × 47 5/8 (90·5 × 121)
Coll. Turner Bequest 1856; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1906.
Exh. Venice and Rome 1948 (43); Rotterdam 1955 (60); Edinburgh 1968 (3); R.A. 1974–5 (435).
Lit. MacColl 1920, p. 31.
Datable for stylistic reasons to the early 1830s, it is just possible that this was projected as Turner's answer to Constable's picture of Waterloo Bridge from Whitehall Stairs, June 18th, 1817, exhibited at the R.A. in 1832. The effect of smoke-belching industry contrasts with the sparkling clear atmosphere of the Constable, and a large twin-funnelled steam-boat replaces the royal yacht. The possibility of Turner setting out to rival this particular Constable is reinforced by the incident that took place during the 1832 Varnishing Days, when Turner's Helvoetsluys, a relatively subdued picture, was hung next to Constable's painting (see No. 345).
Published in:
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
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