Catalogue entry
Drawing from a point near the Quai de la Batte, Turner records a detailed view of Liège looking towards the ancient Pont des Arches. The drawing is continued on the folio opposite (Tate
D20096; Turner Bequest CCXVII 8 a). The spired bell tower of St Paul’s Cathedral is seen at right, and in the foreground boats and barges are moored at the banks of the Meuse. Another of Liège’s celebrated churches, this one dedicated to Saint Martin and constructed in the Mosan Gothic style, is included and shown directly above the central arch of the bridge. Owing to its hilltop location on the Mont-Saint-Martin, the tower of Saint Martin rises loftily above the rooftops of the city. The church is depicted again in Turner’s 1825 panoramic survey of the churches of Liège (Tate
D19446–D19447; Turner Bequest CCXV 25a–26) and in an engraving by R. Brice after a drawing by Fussell published in
The Continental Tourist, and Pictorial Companion of 1833.
1 There is also an undated pencil drawing of the Pont des Arches, as Turner would have seen it, by the Belgian printmaker Paul Lauter (1806–1875) and a corresponding lithograph in the collections of the Université de Liège.
2
Alice Rylance-Watson
January 2014
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