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 Studies of a Horse and Cart, a Laden Waggon, Figures and Heads, on the Rhine Quay or at the Market at Düsseldorf 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of a Horse and Cart, a Laden Waggon, Figures and Heads, on the Rhine Quay or at the Market at Düsseldorf’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 139 Verso:
Studies of a Horse and Cart, a Laden Waggon, Figures and Heads, on the Rhine Quay or at the Market at Düsseldorf 1825
D19115
Turner Bequest CCXIV 139a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Red Cap | Blue | Bo[...]’ centre left, beside figure, ‘Straw’ right of centre, on cart, ‘Young Girl | Hair pla[?ited] and long | the Swiss’ and ‘The Ch[...] is made | up from the stock | by wood pots’ towards bottom right, upside down, and ‘[?16] | Red Blue | Red grey’ bottom centre, around coat-tails
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the most prominent subject is study of a horse pulling a two-wheeled cart, apparently laden with ‘Straw’. At the top left are swift studies of women’s faces and bonnets; one supports a basket on her head. At the centre left is a study from the back, perhaps showing a child, with colour notes.
The other way up at the outer edge is a back view of a ‘Young Girl’ with her hair seemingly ‘plaited and long’, which appears to have reminded Turner of the ‘Swiss’ style; see for example Tate D04814 (Turner Bequest LXXVIII 17) among the pencil and watercolour studies in the 1802 Swiss Figures sketchbook. At the centre is an isolated study of coat-tails, perhaps part of a uniform; compare the details on folio 137 recto (D19110). Lastly comes a man beside a cartload of boxes, baskets, bundles and perhaps barrels.
There is no indication of an immediate setting, but it was presumably the Rhine riverfront or the nearby marketplace at Düsseldorf, as seen on folios 138 recto and verso and the recto of this leaf (D19112–D19114). See under the first of those pages for Turner’s treatment of the city in general, and this sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many figure scenes, and studies of individuals, their costume and headgear.

Matthew Imms
September 2020

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Studies of a Horse and Cart, a Laden Waggon, Figures and Heads, on the Rhine Quay or at the Market at Düsseldorf 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-studies-of-a-horse-and-cart-a-laden-waggon-figures-and-heads-r1202467, accessed 07 September 2025.