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 Views of a Town, ?Ghent 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views of a Town, ?Ghent’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 156 Recto:
Views of a Town, ?Ghent 1824
D19856
Turner Bequest CCXVI 151
Pencil on white wove paper, 78 x 118 mm
Watermark ‘smith & [allnut] | 18[22]’
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘151’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVI–151’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These rough sketches, dashed off by Turner in moments, show two views of a town: one large prospect and one smaller, squared-off scene. Despite the artist’s summary handling, it may be that Turner is sketching Ghent from a distance here: a city with a panoply of medieval churches and buildings and whose profile, as a result, is richly embellished with a variety of towers, spires, steeples, crow-stepped gables, and roofs. See also Tate D19854–D19855; Turner Bequest CCXVI 150 b–c.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Views of a Town, ?Ghent 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-views-of-a-town-ghent-r1174649, accessed 23 September 2024.