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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry, ending ‘interior of a church, at “Coln” (Cologne)’: ‘???’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy in the same way.2 The busy page was used three ways up for disparate subjects. With the gutter at the top, the right-hand half is taken up with a heavily shaded, arcaded church interior, with figures near a ‘Pink Silk’ feature, possibly a hanging on a pulpit. The rapidly rendered space is difficult to identify positively, but may be Cologne’s Great St Martin church, the exterior of which is shown on folio 141 recto (D19118), or one of the many other churches in the city. There is what appears to be part of another church interior on folio 143 verso (D19123).

Along the left-hand edge relative to this (and inverted relative to the foliation) is a swift sketch or fragmentary details apparently showing the Rhine riverfront near Cologne Cathedral (‘Dom’ in German, and labelled ‘Dom[?o]’; compare folio 143 verso; D19123), and what is likely a phonetic attempt at ‘Trankgasse Pforte’ (gateway), referring to one of the nearby towers along the lost Rheinmauer city wall, as discussed under folio 141 verso opposite (D19119). Directly to the left of the interior is a study of jars or bottles, and the other way up at the outer edge is a ‘Fish Boat’ under sail, with a view down into a large barge below it and two cloaked figures to the left: one perhaps a kneeling monk seen in the church, the other a woman in a bonnet.

Despite nineteenth-century redevelopment, substantial damage during the Second World War and later bridges, features of Cologne’s main river prospects remain recognisable. See under D19118 for discussion of views of the city from this tour and other occasions,3 and the sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many shipping and figure subjects, and studies of individuals, their costume and headgear.

Technical notes:

Oily stains towards the top left have been offset from folio 141 verso opposite (D19119) and originated on earlier pages, as discussed in that entry.