The Interior of a Cannon Foundry. 1797-98. Graphite and watercolour on paper, 247 x 347 mm Collection: Tate Britain. Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856. Reference D00873; Turner Bequest XXXIII B). [Click on image to enlarge it.]

According to the Tate website, “This is apparently based on a page in the North of England sketchbook (Tate D01001; Turner Bequest XXXIV 90). When it was exhibited at Manchester in 1968 the drawing was tentatively identified as Woolwich Arsenal,1 but on the strength of the association with the North of England tour Hill has proposed that it shows one of Walker’s foundries, either at Rotherham or Conisbrough. The curator and historian Celina Fox, however, calls the sheet ‘Ironworks, Merthyr’, relating it to the work Turner did for Anthony Bacon at Merthyr Tydfil in 1798; see the Cyfarthfa sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest XLI).”

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Last modified 16 March 2016