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 The Town of Luxembourg, the Rham and the Bock from outside the Porte de Trèves 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Town of Luxembourg, the Rham and the Bock from outside the Porte de Trèves’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Verso:
The Town of Luxembourg, the Rham and the Bock from outside the Porte de Trèves 1839
D28270
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 58 a
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Taken together, this sketch and that on folio 58 verso (Tate D28270; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 57 a) form one panoramic view of the west and the north of Luxembourg City. In this part of the prospect Turner depicts the old town of Luxembourg, or Ville Haute, from outside Trèves Gate. The view incorporates the tower of Saint Michael’s church shaded with light hatching and the spire of Notre-Dame cathedral towards the left. The narrow, sharply tapering spire of Saint-Jean-du-Grund is visible in the foreground.
The sketches are the basis for a gouache, pen and ink and watercolour drawing on blue paper of the Bock and the Rham plateau looking over the Alzette valley (Tate D20246; Turner Bequest CCXXI M). For other sketches of Luxembourg in this book see Tate D28228–D28231, D28266, D28267–D28269, D28271–D28288; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 32a–34, 56a, 57–58, 59–67a. See also the earlier Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19712, D19714; Turner Bequest CCXVI 82, 83).

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘The Town of Luxembourg, the Rham and the Bock from outside the Porte de Trèves 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-the-town-of-luxembourg-the-rham-and-the-bock-from-outside-r1150547, accessed 25 April 2024.