Joseph Mallord William Turner

The medieval St Martin’s-in-the-Bullring was largely rebuilt in 1875, although the tower and spire were preserved.1 It now stands in St Martin’s Square, a piazza within Birmingham’s Bullring Shopping Centre on the north side of Edgbaston Street, surrounded by modern developments. Nevertheless, the tower remains visible to the south-east from Turner’s viewpoint, along a pedestrian walkway. Turner’s numbering beside the tower and spire presumably relates to their proportions.

As part of unpublished Turner research informed by local knowledge, Dr Bernard Richards has identified the silhouette to the left of the tower as the bronze statue of Admiral Lord Nelson (1758–1805), which now stands in a different position on the same side of the church.2 Nelson died in the course of his victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and the statue by Sir Richard Westmacott (1775–1856), showing him standing beside the much-reduced prow of a ship of the line, was unveiled in 1809;3 it can be seen more clearly in a watercolour of the High Street Market, Birmingham (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery)4 by David Cox (1783–1859), engraved in 1827,5 which shows the same view and confirms that Turner has loosely indicated a busy market in the foreground.

For Turner and Nelson, see David Blayney Brown’s section ‘Marine subjects c.1803–14’ in the present catalogue. For other views of Birmingham, see under folio 3 verso (D21980).