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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Vienna up to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Buildings; Sketch and Inscriptions Relating to Works in the Imperial Picture Gallery, Vienna 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Buildings; Sketch and Inscriptions Relating to Works in the Imperial Picture Gallery, Vienna’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 94 Verso:
Buildings; Sketch and Inscriptions Relating to Works in the Imperial Picture Gallery, Vienna 1833
D31597
Turner Bequest CCCXI 94a
Pencil on off-white lined paper, 184 x 113 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Titian Venus and [...] | all but the Cupid’, ‘[...] of [...] Bath of Diana | without the Black W[...]’ top, ‘K[...]’, ‘[...]’ centre, ‘Casper Crayer 1582’ | ‘[...] Christ 1669’ | ‘Roger R[...]’ | ‘S[...] del [...]’ rear (inverted)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Above and below a rough sketch of buildings are inscriptions and a sketch relating to paintings in the Imperial Picture Gallery, Vienna.
With the sketchbook turned in accordance with the foliation, Turner has produced a swift jotting of a painting with the inscription: ‘Titian Venus and [...] | all but the Cupid’, ‘[...] of [...] Bath of Diana | without the Black W[...]’. These notes probably refer to Titian’s Mars, Venus and Cupid (c.1550) and possibly Diana and Callisto (c.1566).1
Inscribed at rear, inversely, are the notes: ‘Casper Crayer 1582’ | ‘[...] Christ 1669’ | ‘Roger R[...]’ | ‘S[...] del [...]’ rear (inverted)’. Of the words that are legible, Turner has rendered the name and dates of Flemish artist Gaspar de Crayer (1584–1669) as ‘Casper Crayer 1582 | 1669’ and a possible reference to his Ecce Homo or Lamentation of Christ.2
Other notes on pictures in the Imperial Collection in this sketchbook, including those on works by Titian and depictions of the Ecco Homo, are at Tate D41262, D31416; Turner Bequest CCCXI 1.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2017

1
Titian, and workshop, Mars, Venus and Cupid, c.1550, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie (13) and Diana and Callisto, c.1566, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie (71),
2
Gaspar de Crayer, Ecce Homo, 1649–56, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie (F15) and Beweinung Christi, 1649–56, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, Gemäldegalerie (801),

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Buildings; Sketch and Inscriptions Relating to Works in the Imperial Picture Gallery, Vienna 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-buildings-sketch-and-inscriptions-relating-to-works-in-the-r1203604, accessed 07 May 2025.