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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Zirl and the Alps near Innsbruck; ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Evangelical and Catholic Heilig-Kreuz Churches, Augsburg, above a Wooden Bridge over the Moat, with the Göggingertor in the Distance 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Evangelical and Catholic Heilig-Kreuz Churches, Augsburg, above a Wooden Bridge over the Moat, with the Göggingertor in the Distance’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Evangelical and Catholic Heilig-Kreuz Churches, Augsburg, above a Wooden Bridge over the Moat, with the Göggingertor in the Distance 1833
D33854
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 163
Chalk and pencil on grey wove paper, 137 x 191 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 163’ bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘163’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sheet and three others (D33881, D33832, D33853; Turner Bequest CCCXLI 129, 147, 162) show the outskirts of Augsburg in Bavaria, where Turner also used the contemporary Venice up to Trento and Rotterdam and Rhine sketchbooks (see respectively under Tate D31655 and D32543; Turner Bequest CCCXII 30, CCCXXII 2a). Although he had also passed through on the outward leg, it is perhaps most likely that the four separate views followed on from the mountain subjects near Innsbruck on similar grey paper included in the present grouping, as discussed in its Introduction. As set out there, the neatly torn edges of the Augsburg sketches match up to form a grid.
The precise identification of the present prospect is slightly uncertain owing to many changes in the vicinity and the staining at left coinciding with the church tower at that point. The subject appears to include the Catholic Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche with its tall tower and Baroque west end (now plainer after restoration following damage in the Second World War); the similar gable of the lower Evangelical church of the same dedication is on its near side, looking south-east along the old city walls over a wooden bridge in the direction of the Göggingertor gate tower. The latter, on the site of the current Königsplatz, was demolished in 1862 as noted under D33811, the clearest view of it among the four Augsburg drawings here in which it apparently features.
The onion-domed towers of the two churches are shown from their east ends in a street view in the Heidelberg up to Salzburg sketchbook (Tate D29930; Turner Bequest CCXCVIII 59), one of a handful of sketches of the city from the outward leg of this tour. See also D33832, where the taller church tower seems to be shown beyond the Göggingertor from the south-east.
Technical notes:
There is some brown staining at the left-hand side, affecting the legibility of the drawing.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions; inscribed in pencil ‘233 | O’ top left, upside down.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Evangelical and Catholic Heilig-Kreuz Churches, Augsburg, above a Wooden Bridge over the Moat, with the Göggingertor in the Distance 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-evangelical-and-catholic-heilig-kreuz-churches-augsburg-r1204297, accessed 20 May 2024.