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

There seem to be four rapidly drawn views here, made both ways up with the page turned horizontally. From Turner’s scattered and scrawled annotations, Finberg suggested ‘Ratisbon’ (the customary older English form for Regensburg), and Cecilia Powell has concurred. The view of distant towers and spires at the top left appears to be labelled to that effect, and the wider view along the gutter seems to show a similar array. The looser ‘carriage sketch’ separated by pencil lines at the top right seems to show hills, possibly again with distant buildings, but Turner’s notes around it are fragmentary. For numerous contemporary views of Regensburg in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 18 verso (D31311);1 there is a clearer view from a distance on folio 33 recto opposite (D31340).

The rough profile of hills across the centre is the other way up, and drawn somewhat later on Turner’s route if the reading of his note ‘Road from [...Bam] to Coburg’ offered here is correct; for Bamberg and Coburg, see respectively under folios 19 recto and 1 verso (D31312, D31278); compare the thumbnail sketch accompanied by a similar phrase on the recto (D31338).