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

With the page turned horizontally, the main drawing centres on Amsterdam’s medieval Schreierstoren, as the Dutch Turner scholar Fred Bachrach recognised,1 at the north end of the tapering block between Amsterdam’s Geldersekade and Ouderzijds Kolk canals, to its left (with an elevating ophaalbrug-type bridge) and right respectively. It is seen from across what is now the broad Prins Hendrikkade, south of Amsterdam Centraal railway station. In the distance, down the Ouderzijds Kolk to the south-west, is the spire of the Oude Kerk. Built in 1487, the tower was originally part of the city walls and now houses a restaurant.2

The inscription ‘SCRAYER HOVCH 1589’ is taken from a low relief (shown as a small blank square in the main view), set into the wall to the right of the ground floor window nearest the corner. Now very weathered, it shows a classical figure in the foreground and a ship on a stormy sea to the left, as shown in Turner’s tiny sketch next to his note, and includes scrolls bearing the building’s name and the date.

The wording is a form of ‘Schreyhoeck[storen]’ in old Dutch, meaning the tower was ‘at a sharp angle’ of the defensive walls. More poetically, the name is also said to signify ‘weepers’ tower’, from the women saying farewell to sailors of the Dutch East India Company setting off for on the River IJ for long voyages.3 The immediate significance of the date is unclear, but likely relates to the development of the neighbouring Lastage area around that time. The inscription at the bottom right, ‘KONINKLIJKEN Nederlandsche LOTERIJ’ had a more contemporary relevance, referring to the Dutch royal lottery (now the Staatsloterij), founded in 1726; it was presumably taken from an adjacent sign or poster.

At the top left is a continuation to that side of the main view, looking south-east along the IJ to the city’s eastern docks (later enclosed as the Oosterdok), with the Groote Kraan (‘large crane’) in the foreground, shown on maps of the time on a platform inside the harbour booms just east of the tower and commemorated in the name of the adjacent Kraansluis bridge. The nearby Zeerecht building is seen on the verso (D19048). The riverfront has since been extensively developed, with more docks, the Victorian railway station and tower blocks; see under folio 81 recto (D18999) for other views in and around the city in this book and elsewhere.