Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Richmond Hill and Bridge
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
adults
architecture
bathing / swimming
bridge
bridges and viaducts
England
figure
group
groups
hill
landscape
leisure and pastimes
people
places
recreational activities
Richmond, Richmond Bridge
river
River Thames
sunshine
UK countries and regions
UK London
UK natural features
water: inland
weather
wooded
<p>In this Thames landscape the sun lies low behind Richmond Hill, emanating a golden light. The foreground, by contrast, is in shade, and the view is shrouded in morning mist. A reviewer wrote that this indistinctness ‘leaves the imagination to wander over Richmond, and finish the picture from the suggestions of the painter’. They argued that less skilled artists would have erred by focusing on intricate details.Due to the women bathing a child and the sheep nearby, the work has been viewed in the tradition of ‘pastoral’. This was a type of literature portraying an idealised rural life.</p><p><em>Gallery label, November 2021</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
28 May 2007 – 27 July 2009
2009-07-27
28 May 2007
2007-05-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2007-05-28
A Turner Gallery
Collection based display
12 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
12 August 2009 – 26 July 2010
2010-07-26
2009-08-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2009-08-12
Turner on the Thames
Collection based display
14 March 2012 – 5 June 2012
2012-06-05
14 March 2012 – 5 June 2012
2012-06-05
2012-03-14
National Trust: Petworth House (Petworth, UK)
2012-03-14
Reciprocal Loan for Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude
Loan-out
22 July 2013 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
22 July 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-07-22
Compton Verney (Compton Verney, UK)
5 October 2013 – 5 January 2014
2014-01-05
2013-10-05
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
1 March 2014 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
2014-03-01
Laing Art Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/
2013-07-22
Capturing British Landscape in the age of Turner and Constable
Loan-out
13 November 2017 – 4 March 2018
2018-03-04
13 November 2017 – 4 March 2018
2018-03-04
2017-11-13
The Lightbox (Woking, UK)
http://www.thelightbox.org/
2017-11-13
Pastoral Elegance: Turner in Surrey
Loan-out
21 March 2018 – 10 January 2021
2021-01-10
16 March 2020 – 10 January 2021
2021-01-10
2020-03-16
Musée Jacquemart-André (Paris, France)
2018-03-21
Turner Watercolours
Tate partnerships & programmes
1 September 2020 – 20 November 2022
2022-11-20
1 September 2020
2020-09-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-09-01
Clore 103
Collection based display
View of Richmond Hill and Bridge
support: 914 × 1219 mm
frame: 1200 × 1510 × 130 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
<div class="text">
<p>In this Thames landscape the sun lies low behind Richmond Hill, emanating a golden light. The foreground, by contrast, is in shade, and the view is shrouded in morning mist. A reviewer wrote that this indistinctness ‘leaves the imagination to wander over Richmond, and finish the picture from the suggestions of the painter’. They argued that less skilled artists would have erred by focusing on intricate details.<br/>Due to the women bathing a child and the sheep nearby, the work has been viewed in the tradition of ‘pastoral’. This was a type of literature portraying an idealised rural life.</p>
</div>

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2021-11-09T00:00:00
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DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>73. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-view-of-richmond-hill-and-bridge-n00557" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00557</span></a>]<b> View of Richmond Hill and Bridge</b> Exh. 1808
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (557)
<br/>Canvas, 36 × 48 (81·5 × 122)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856 (87, ‘Richmond Bridge’ 4'0" × 3'0"); transferred to the Tate Gallery 1929.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> Turner's gallery 1808; Tate Gallery 1931 (32); Venice and Rome 1948 (15, repr.); Rotterdam 1955 (52, repr.); <i>Historic Richmond</i> Town Hall, Richmond, Surrey, August–September 1959 (53); Australian tour 1960 (5).</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Thornbury 1862, i, p. 349; 1877, p. 467; Armstrong 1902, p. 227; Whitley 1928, p. 140; Davies 1946, p. 187; Wilton 1979, pp. 118–19.</p>
<p></p>
<p>There are general views of the same scene in the ‘Shipwreck (No. 2 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-moonlight-a-study-at-millbank-n00459" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00459</span></a>])’ and ‘Thames from Reading to Walton’ sketchbooks (LXXXVIII-14, running onto 15, and XCV-24). The ‘Hesperides (1)’ sketchbook contains two <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> sketches for the picture, and a figure study related to that closest to the final picture (XCIII-35 <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/recto-verso" title="Glossary definition for 'Recto / Verso'"><span>verso</span></a>, 37 verso and 38 respectively).
<br/>
<br/>John Landseer (?) described this picture among those shown by Turner in his gallery in 1808 in the <i>Review of Publications of Art</i> for that year: Turner's ‘view of <i>Richmond Hill and Bridge</i> is taken from the Surry [<i>sic</i>] bank, looking up the Thames ... The most conspicuous feature in the picture is Richmond Bridge, of which, the sun being low in the horizon, the Surry end is faintly overshadowed. By obscuring the detail of Richmond itself in the mistiness of the morning; by introducing some sheep, and the simple incident of women bathing a child near the foreground—an incident which we deem worthy of the pastoral Muse of <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a>, and which, had it been met with in the morning pastorals of Theocritus, would have called forth general admiration—Mr. Turner has given a pastoral character to a scene of polished and princely retirement ... We feel delighted with the effects which we here behold “of incense breathing morn”. The indistinct distance of mingled groves and edifices with which Mr. Turner here presents us, leaves the imagination to wander over Richmond, and finish the picture from the suggestions of the painter, where another artist would have exhausted his subject, and perhaps the patience of his observers, by the attention which he would have required to the minute accuracy of his distant detail.’
<br/>
<br/>Finberg, in a note now in the British Museum, suggested that the centre of the picture was worked on by Turner at a later date, and indeed the sky does seem to have been painted up to the edges of the more thinly painted trees, but Landseer's review suggests that the effect of the rising sun low over the hills was already there in 1808.
<br/>
<br/>This picture was priced at £200 in a note, probably of <i>c.</i> 1810, in Turner's ‘Finance’ sketchbook (CXXII-36; for the date see Nos. 53 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-narcissus-and-echo-t03869" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03869</span></a>] and 56 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-destruction-of-sodom-n00474" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00474</span></a>]).</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-23T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults architecture bathing / swimming bridge bridges and viaducts England figure group groups hill landscape leisure and pastimes people places recreational activities Richmond, Richmond Bridge river River Thames sunshine UK countries and regions UK London UK natural features water: inland weather wooded