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, Meuse and Cologne Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Liège across the River Meuse from the Outremeuse District, with the Citadel Beyond; the Citadel above the Church of St-Barthélemy (St Bartholomew) in the Distance 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Liège across the River Meuse from the Outremeuse District, with the Citadel Beyond; the Citadel above the Church of St-Barthélemy (St Bartholomew) in the Distance’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Recto:
Liège across the River Meuse from the Outremeuse District, with the Citadel Beyond; the Citadel above the Church of St-Barthélemy (St Bartholomew) in the Distance 1825
D19449
Turner Bequest CCXV 27
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Partial watermark ‘lee | 19’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘27’ bottom left and ‘277’ top left, both upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXV – 27’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The outer third of this page was likely used first, for an extension to the right of the detailed double-page panorama on folios 25 verso–26 recto (D19446–D19447), showing central Liège north of meadows along the River Meuse. Turner would have temporarily pushed D19447 back to continue immediately across from the edge, here looking north-eastwards down the valley to the far end of the Citadel, on steep slopes beyond the city centre, with perfunctory indications of the twin spires of the Church of St-Barthélemy (St Bartholomew) in the distance. Serving to complete the overall profile of the hillside, it is an otherwise rather inconsequential addition.
That section is separated from the main view, drawn the other way up across the rest of the page, by a loose pencil line. The inner subject includes the main part of the Citadel, its bastions aligned to the north over the ogee-profiled dome of the church of St Andrew (St André). Not to be confused with the extant church of the same dedication shown on folios 24 verso and 25 verso (D19444, D19446), the spire beyond the trees to the left belonged to the Baroque St-Sacrement (Holy Sacrament) church, within the former Collège en Isle (or Collège des jésuites wallons) on the west bank of the Meuse. The church was demolished in 1821 during the clearance of the school to make way for the recently established Liège University,1 south of today’s Place Cockerill, although the spire remains in an engraving by Jean-Baptiste Madou published in the same year as this tour.2
The viewpoint was the Outremeuse bank, since developed beyond recognition, in the vicinity of today’s Pont J.F. Kennedy, where riverfront tower blocks obscure the scene. The turreted building by the low bridge on the right, possibly part of the lost Convent of the Recollectines en Béche shown on maps of the time, is seen in views downriver on folio 26 verso opposite (D19448), in the contemporary Holland sketchbook (Tate D19169; Turner Bequest CCXIV 166a) and, near the new Pont de la Boverie (on the site of the Kennedy bridge), in the 1839 Spa, Dinant and Namur book (D28068; CCLXXXVI 14).
See under folio 23 verso (D19442) for other views of the city in this sketchbook and elsewhere.

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
See R. Lechat, ‘Le Collège des Jésuites en Ile à Liège’, Château de Chokier, accessed 21 July 2020, http://www.chokier.com/FILES/JESUITESENILE/CollegeJesuite-Lechat.html.
2
Imaged as ‘1825 – Madou – Le Pont de Arches et le collège des Jésuites en Ile’ at ‘L’enseignement à Liège: Le Collège des Jésuites en Ile à Liège’, Château de Chokier, accessed 21 July 2020, http://www.chokier.com/FILES/JESUITESENILE/Icono.html.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Liège across the River Meuse from the Outremeuse District, with the Citadel Beyond; the Citadel above the Church of St-Barthélemy (St Bartholomew) in the Distance 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-liege-across-the-river-meuse-from-the-outremeuse-district-r1202804, accessed 20 June 2025.