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

Turned horizontally, the page shows Amsterdam’s IJ riverfront, with the cupola of the lost Haringpakkerstoren (‘herring packer’s tower’) behind the houses on the left. See under folio 97 recto (D19031) for the history of the tower, which stood at the corner of the Singel canal and what is now Prins Hendrikkade, beside the IJ; there is an unobstructed view of it on folio 110 recto opposite (D19056). A laden sailing barge is shown off the quay, with an open boat in the foreground immediately below Turner’s viewpoint, and more boats are shown under sail in the distance off a windmill to the north-west, presumably the one marked on maps of the time overlooking the river off the northern tip of the Realeneiland.

Turner’s inscriptions at the top left are both slightly unclear. Finberg read the first, over the Haringpakkerstoren, as ‘Karltoor’,1 but it may be ‘Kantoor’ (Dutch for ‘office’) and the other seems to be ‘Logement’ (lodgings; compare folios 56 recto and verso and 93 verso; D18949–D18950, D19024); they were likely transcribed from signage.

The riverfront has since been extensively developed, with the Westerdok and Oosterdok, the Victorian railway station and tower blocks. See under folio 81 recto (D18999) for other views in and around the city in this book and elsewhere, and see this sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many shipping studies.