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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Carriages beside Buildings with Baroque and Gothic Spires; Views on the River Rhine, Including Düsseldorf and Neuss 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Carriages beside Buildings with Baroque and Gothic Spires; Views on the River Rhine, Including Düsseldorf and Neuss’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 137 Verso:
Carriages beside Buildings with Baroque and Gothic Spires; Views on the River Rhine, Including Düsseldorf and Neuss 1825
D19111
Turner Bequest CCXIV 137a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Dus]’ top right, ‘Blue’, and ‘Grey clo[...] | yellow [...] | N[?euss]’ bottom right, on and around sky and horizon, all descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main view, with the page turned horizontally, shows carriages in a street or square outside a group of buildings including what seems to be a gabled façade topped by a Baroque spire, with a plainer Gothic church spire beyond; alternatively, the structure in the foreground might be a chapel or annexe of the church itself. The distinctive subject, which remains to be identified, was perhaps in the vicinity of Düsseldorf (see under folio 138 recto opposite; D19112).
On the right, at right-angles to buildings (and perhaps drawn first) are bands of slight river views with annotations, some of which relate to the colours of the sky; compare the sunset studies on the recto (D19110). Various sketches on adjacent pages likely show the meandering River Rhine south of Kleve (see under folio 132 verso; D19101) as Turner travelled upstream to Düsseldorf.
Here the upper (outer) view appears to be labelled ‘Dus’, and is perhaps the first distant glimpse of the city to the south-west. The second may be marked ‘Neuss’, and apparently shows that city, on the west bank opposite Düsseldorf, with the prominent Romanesque Basilica of St Quirinus on the skyline to the south, featuring its square west tower and domed east end. The church may be seen from another angle in the 1833 Rotterdam and Rhine sketchbook (Tate D32599; Turner Bequest CCCXXII 31).

Matthew Imms
September 2020

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Carriages beside Buildings with Baroque and Gothic Spires; Views on the River Rhine, Including Düsseldorf and Neuss 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, 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-carriages-beside-buildings-with-baroque-and-gothic-spires-r1202463, accessed 27 June 2025.