Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Street, with cathedral, etc.’): ‘Stephanskirche, Vienna from S.W.’1 With the page turned horizontally, the main view shows the west end of St Stephen’s Cathedral to the north-east, from the Stock-im-Eisen-Platz. As Cecilia Powell has noted, the building in the foreground at the centre is the Baroque Lazanskyhaus,2 which was demolished in 1896.3 The cathedral’s imposing south transept tower looms over the house, the north-west corner of which is apparently shown in a view from nearby on folio 9 verso (D30019). Turner temporarily rolled over the outer edge of the page back to facilitate his continuing the upper stages of the spire on the verso (D30077), and a slight convex crease remains evident about a third of the way in.

Powell has noted that Turner arrived in the Austrian capital on Monday 7 September, having travelled north-east from Graz (see under folio 41 verso; D30079) to what would be the easternmost point on this tour, and was staying at the Stadt Frankfurt hotel in Seilergasse, off the Graben; ‘he stepped outside and drew a few sketches of the Stefansdom including the Stock-im-Eisen-Platz.’4 For other views in and around Vienna, see folios 4 recto, 5 recto and verso (D30008, D30010–D30011)5 and, less certainly, folios 2 recto and verso and 10 verso (D30004–D30005, D30021).