Joseph Mallord William Turner

Fribourg: The Descent from the Hôtel de Ville

c.1841

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Fribourg Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite and watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 235 × 336 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D33554
Turner Bequest CCCXXXV 14

Display caption

A sheet from the sketchbook that Turner devoted to the Swiss town of Fribourg in 1841. Like Luxembourg, Fribourg attracted him for its dramatic setting in a steep ravine. Its clusters of ancient houses huddled beneath precipices and its towers rising from rocky peaks formed a striking contrast of the natural and the man-made: urban civilisation could be seen to exist only tenuously in a wild and awe-inspiring setting.

Gallery label, June 1993

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