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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Hamburg and Copenhagen Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Hamburg: The Monument to Johann Georg Büsch, North of the Lombardsbrücke; Details of its Reliefs 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Hamburg: The Monument to Johann Georg Büsch, North of the Lombardsbrücke; Details of its Reliefs’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Verso:
Hamburg: The Monument to Johann Georg Büsch, North of the Lombardsbrücke; Details of its Reliefs 1835
D30852
Turner Bequest CCCV 16 a
Pencil on white laid writing paper, 92 x 155 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Von Seinen | Danck Baren | Mit Burgen | MDCCCI’ top leftand ‘Geburtsiahr | MDCCXXVIII’ centre right towards top
Partial Watermark: orb ornamented with laurel leaves
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch depicts a monument in Hamburg commemorating the German mathematician and economist Johann Georg Büsch (1728–1800). Carved from sandstone, the obelisk was designed by the architect Johann August Arens and unveiled in 1801.1 The Büsch monument was originally situated at the Bastion Vincent Hamburger, within the old ramparts of the city, but by the time of Turner’s visit in 1835 it had been moved to a site on the Bastion David, north of the Lombardsbrücke (Lombard Bridge).
Turner has transcribed inscriptions from plaques on the sides of the monument, which read: ‘Von Seinen Danck Baren Mit Burgen MDCCCI’ (‘From his grateful fellow citizens’) and ‘Geburtsiahr MDCCXXVIII’ (‘Date of Birth 1728’). The sketch of figures is after one of the allegorical scenes decorating the monument.
The Büsch monument is depicted again on Tate D30853; Turner Bequest CCCV 17.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2015

1
‘Info’, Büsch Denkmal, accessed 27 April 2015, http://denkmalhamburg.de/buesch-denkmal

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Hamburg: The Monument to Johann Georg Büsch, North of the Lombardsbrücke; Details of its Reliefs 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-hamburg-the-monument-to-johann-georg-busch-north-of-the-r1187230, accessed 25 July 2025.