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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Givet, Mézières, Verdun, Metz, Luxemburg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Metz Cathedral from the Corner of the Place d'Armes 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Metz Cathedral from the Corner of the Place d'Armes’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
Metz Cathedral from the Corner of the Place d’Armes 1839
D28233
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 35
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘35’ bottom right
Stamped in black ink ‘CCLXXXVIII–35’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts the northern façade of the Cathedral of Saint-Étienne from the Place d’Armes at Metz. The foot of the sketch, where the portal and side chapels have been drawn, is continued on the folio opposite (Tate D28232; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 34a). Turner’s rendering of architectural features is relatively detailed: see, for example, the row of lancet windows and buttresses flanking a slender and lofty openwork spire.
For other representations of Metz Cathedral in this sketchbook see Tate D28200, D28218–D28219, D28234; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 17a, 26a–27, 35a; see also the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19786; Turner Bequest CCXVI 118).

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Metz Cathedral from the Corner of the Place d’Armes 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-metz-cathedral-from-the-corner-of-the-place-darmes-r1150510, accessed 23 September 2024.