Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Spittlertor and Town Walls, Nuremberg

1840

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

License this image

In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Venice; Passau to Würzburg Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 126 × 198 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D31337
Turner Bequest CCCX 31 a

Catalogue entry

With the page turned horizontally, the cylindrical Spittlertor on Nuremberg’s walls is seen from the south, looking over a defensive ditch to where a bridge crosses to an arch at the near corner of the tower’s compound. The ditch has since been filled in at this point, enabling access at ground level; the gateway’s pointed turrets and castellations have been replaced with a pitched roof.
The viewpoint is now along the multi-lane city ring-road, and the view is partly obscured by trees. Another aspect of the tower complex is shown on the recto (D31336). This Nuremberg subject was identified by Cecilia Powell.1 For a few other views of the city in this sketch book and the more extensive sequence from 1835, see under folio 29 recto (D31332).2

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.243.
2
See also ibid., pp.70, 82 note 55.

Read full Catalogue entry

Explore

You might like

Left Right