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

Turned horizontally, the page comprises a two-part view of Amsterdam’s IJ riverfront, looking west to the cupola of the lost Haringpakkerstoren (‘herring packer’s tower’) on the right. See under folio 97 recto (D19031) for the history of the tower, which stood at the corner of the Singel canal and what is now Prins Hendrikkade, beside the IJ. To the left is the dome of the Ronde Lutherse Kerk (‘round Lutheran church’), down the Singel south-west of the tower; see under folio 98 recto (D19033).

The elevating ophaalbrug-type bridge in the foreground led along a jetty to the seventeenth-century Nieuwe Stadsherberg (‘new city inn’), continued in the lower view. It is shown in engravings and on maps of the time at about the point where the Westelijke Toegangsbrug leads to the western end of the Victorian railway station.1 There is another two-part view of the tower and inn from the same side on folio 110 recto (D19056), and a more detailed variant in the contemporary Holland, Meuse and Cologne sketchbook (Tate D19495, D19497; Turner Bequest CCXV 58a, 59a). The riverfront has since been extensively developed, with the Westerdok and Oosterdok, the station and tower blocks.

At the bottom left are incidental studies of two women, or perhaps the same one from front and back, labelled ‘Black Hood’; another is shown face-on at the top centre. See under folio 81 recto (D18999) for other views in and around the city in this book and elsewhere, and the sketchbook’s Introduction for discussion of its many figure scenes, and studies of individuals, their costume and headgear, more of which fill folio 121 recto opposite (D19078).