J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner Dordrecht across the Oude Maas; Details of Architecture; Studies of a Standing Man 1817

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Dordrecht across the Oude Maas; Details of Architecture; Studies of a Standing Man’ 1817
Folio 86 Recto:
Dordrecht across the Oude Maas; Details of Architecture; Studies of a Standing Man 1817
D13160
Turner Bequest CLXII 87
Pencil on ‘blue’ laid writing paper, 93 x 156 mm
Inscribed by Turner ‘Yellow Light’ top centre, in sky, ‘C[...] | every thing lower than the | Yellow light of the sky the Blue rather Green | the D[ark] Clouds grey . Figures of many color in the | prow - One third sail in the middle’ bottom left, ‘Dort’ below right of centre, ‘12 Lanterns seen’ centre right, near roofline, and ‘same figure | wholy in Red | ex [?for ‘except’] black stocking’ towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXII – 87’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner arrived at Dordrecht on 10 September 1817 and stayed for a day and a half, making numerous drawings. With the page turned horizontally, occupying most of it is a view of the town from across the river, with a landing-stage in the foreground and the Grote Kerk in the background. Turner indicates thin strands of cloud drifting across the ‘Yellow light’ of the sky, an effect often seen in pictures by the Dordrecht master Aelbert Cuyp (1620‒1691) and carried into his own painting Dort or Dordrecht. The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam becalmed (1818; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut).1
Within a drawn outline separating the bottom right quarter of the page are two additional studies, to the left a detail of architecture, perhaps a church clock as suggested by A.G.H. Bachrach2 or the top of some other tower; each of two arches are surmounted by three flaming urns but as Turner notes that twelve are ‘seen’, this feature must be four-sided. To its right are studies of the front and side of the ‘same figure’, as clearly stated by Turner; a man wearing a broad-brimmed hat. Turner’s notes on his dress may be related to others on folio 85 recto (D13158; Turner Bequest CLXII 86) which are not accompanied by a drawing.

Quirine van der Meer Mohr
December 2013

David Blayney Brown
September 2025

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.102‒4 no.137, pl.140.
2
Bachrach 1974, p.39.

How to cite

Quirine van der Meer Mohr and David Blayney Brown, ‘Dordrecht across the Oude Maas; Details of Architecture; Studies of a Standing Man 1817’, catalogue entry, September 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, June 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/dordrecht-across-the-oude-maas-details-of-architecture-studies-of-a-standing-man-r1212533, accessed 31 July 2026.