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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Meuse-Moselle Gouache and Watercolour ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Luxembourg from the North c.1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Luxembourg from the North’ c.1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Luxembourg from the North c.1839
D20247
Turner Bequest CCXXI N
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 140 x 192 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCXXII N’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell notes, it is impossible to determine the exact spot in Luxembourg depicted in this gouache; there is no doubt, however, that it does indeed represent that city because of the ‘type of plateaux’ depicted, the ‘characteristic turret on the left’, and ‘the straggle of houses clinging to the incline on the right’.1
In producing this composition, Turner likely drew on visual memoranda of Luxembourg stored in memory and on paper in the pages of his sketchbooks. One drawing in particular may have contributed: a rough jotting made in the Givet, Mézières, Verdun, Metz, Luxemburg and Trèves sketchbook (Tate D28275; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 61).
For other of Turner’s 1839 gouaches of Luxembourg see Tate D20244–D20246, D20248–D20249, D20264, D20270, D20273, D20284–D20285, N05240; Turner Bequest CCXXI K–CCXXI M, CCXXI O–CCXXI P, CCXXII E, CCXXII K, CCXXII N, CCXXII Y–CCXXII Z.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2013

1
Powell 1991, p.183.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Luxembourg from the North c.1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-luxembourg-from-the-north-r1150961, accessed 25 April 2024.