Joseph Mallord William Turner

Mainz, Showing the Cathedral from the North-East

1839

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 100 × 163 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D28483
Turner Bequest CCXC 67

Catalogue entry

Turner has taken a quick sketch of the market square at Mainz, lined with traditional houses and historic buildings. Two carriages have been roughly suggested at left and right. Rising loftily above is the city’s most celebrated building: the Romanesque Cathedral of St Martin, shown from the north-east.1
For other depictions of Mainz in this sketchbook see Tate D28470, D28484–D28485, D28587, D28488–D28491; Turner Bequest CCXC 60a, 67a–68, 69–71. For earlier drawings see the Itinerary Rhine Tour and Waterloo and Rhine sketchbooks of 1817 (Tate D12621–D12623, D12832, D12834–D12837; Turner Bequest CLIX 59–60, CLX 67a, 68a–70). See also the 1833 Brussels up to Mannheim–Rhine sketchbook of 1833 (Tate D29625, D29672–D29675; Turner Bequest CCXCVI 15, 39–41).

Alice Rylance-Watson
July 2013

1
‘St Martin’s Cathedral’, Landeshauptstadt Mainz, http://www.mainz.de/WGAPublisher/online/html/default/mkuz-5v9eue.en.html, accessed 26 July 2013.

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