Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (Do. [i.e. ditto: Buildings at Würzburg]): ‘Alte Mainbrücke’.1 Finberg marked another copy in a similar way.2 As Cecilia Powell has also noted,3 this rapid sketch, made with the page turned horizontally, shows the view from the Alte Mainbrücke over the River Main, flanked by monumental statues on its cutwaters, east to tower of the Rathaus and beyond to the west spires of the cathedral. To the left are the Baroque spire of the Marienkapelle (since rebuilt in Gothic Revival style) and, further off, the dome of the Neumünster. There is a watermill below to the left, presumably taking advantage of the faster flow as the river passes to the left under the multiple arches. A larger mill building now projects over the river at this point.

For the extensive sequence of Würzburg views in this sketchbook and others elsewhere, see under folio 72 verso (D30596; CCCIII 71).