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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Tour to the Alps 1836 > Val d'Aosta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Town Hall, Arras 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Town Hall, Arras’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 73 Recto:
The Town Hall, Arras 1836
D29174
Turner Bequest CCXCIII 73
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘73’ top right and ‘320’ bottom right
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIII 73’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch depicts the Town Hall (Hotel de Ville) at Arras from the Petite Place, now renamed the Place des Heros in commemoration of Arras’s sufferings in the first world War. Reduced to ruins during bombardment the Town Hall, a masterpiece of Flemish Gothic, and arcaded buildings around the square are today restored so the ensemble appears again much as Turner saw it. Evidently, he ran out of space to record the full height of the hall’s belfry, so has supplied a separate detail of the pinnacle to the right.

David Hill
June 2010

Revised by David Blayney Brown
July 2013

How to cite

David Hill, ‘The Town Hall, Arras 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, revised by David Blayney Brown, July 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-town-hall-arras-r1144722, accessed 25 April 2024.