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 > Givet, Mézières, Verdun, Metz, Luxemburg ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Citadel of the Holy Spirit,, Luxembourg, from the South (Boulevard d'Avranches); The Jesuits' Church, Luxembourg, and Surrounding Buildings 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Citadel of the Holy Spirit,, Luxembourg, from the South (Boulevard d'Avranches); The Jesuits' Church, Luxembourg, and Surrounding Buildings’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 33 Verso:
The Citadel of the Holy Spirit,, Luxembourg, from the South (Boulevard d’Avranches); The Jesuits’ Church, Luxembourg, and Surrounding Buildings 1839
D28230
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 33 a
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 101 x 168 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This pencil sketch is preparatory material for a gouache, pen and ink and watercolour drawing of the Citadel of the Holy Spirit (La Citadelle du Saint-Esprit) at Luxembourg of 1839 (Tate D20248; Turner Bequest CCXXI O), a work described by the art critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) as ‘probably the grandest drawing of this date’.1 The formidable citadel can be seen rising from the cliff’s edge, with the Church of St Michael and the old town behind it, rendered in slight and agile line.
Drawn inversely to the sketch of the citadel is a view of Notre-Dame Cathedral, a seventeenth-century building which was originally associated with the Jesuit order.
For other sketches of Luxembourg in this book see Tate D28228–D28229, D28231, D28266–D28288; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVIII 32a–33, 34, 56a–67a. See also the earlier Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19712, D19714; Turner Bequest CCXVI 82, 83). For colour drawings of Luxembourg see Tate D20220, D20244–D20249, D20258, D20264, D20270, D20272–D20273, D20284, D24742; Turner Bequest CCXX M, CCXXI K–N, CCXXII O, CCXXI P, CCXXI Y, CCXXII E, CCXXII K, CCXXII M, CCXXII N, CCXXII Y, CCLIX 177; N05240.

Alice Rylance-Watson
May 2013

1
Quoted in Stainton and Schneiderman 1982, p.50.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘The Citadel of the Holy Spirit,, Luxembourg, from the South (Boulevard d’Avranches); The Jesuits’ Church, Luxembourg, and Surrounding Buildings 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-the-citadel-of-the-holy-spirit-luxembourg-from-the-south-r1150507, accessed 05 April 2026.