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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern ... > Rivers Meuse and Moselle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Interior of the Cathedral, Trier, with Worshippers 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Interior of the Cathedral, Trier, with Worshippers’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 98 Verso:
Interior of the Cathedral, Trier, with Worshippers 1824
D19743
Turner Bequest CCXVI 97 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 78 x 118 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘<Notredame>’ | ‘Domo’ top right; ‘Gold’ bottom centre towards right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this sketch Turner stands among worshippers gathered inside Trier’s St Peter’s Cathedral, drawing as much of its vast architecture and interior as he can fit onto a page of such diminutive dimensions. Turner’s view includes the lower reaches of the Cathedral’s vertiginous piers, some embellished with Baroque sculpture, which rise loftily into arched vaulted ceilings. A smaller yet similar view is shown on Tate D19740; Turner Bequest CCXVI 96.
The artist inscribes ‘Domo’ at top right, a misspelling of the Italian ‘Duomo’ or the German ‘Dom’, both meaning cathedral. Originally Turner had written ‘Notredame’, before correcting his inscription to ‘Domo’. Notre Dame (Our Lady) refers to the Liebfrauenkirche (Church of Our Lady) which stands directly adjacent to the cathedral.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Interior of the Cathedral, Trier, with Worshippers 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-interior-of-the-cathedral-trier-with-worshippers-r1174534, accessed 24 April 2024.