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

With the page turned horizontally, on the left of the view is Amsterdam’s Neo-Classical Ronde Lutherse Kerk or Koepelkerk (‘round Lutheran church’ or ‘cupola church’), on the east side of the Singel canal, looking south-south-east to the spire of the Jan Roodenpoortstoren. Turner had drawn the dome and cupola in the background in the 1817 Dort sketchbook (Tate D13092; Turner Bequest CLXII 51a), but in 1822 they were destroyed by fire, as shown in a contemporary colour print after Evert Maaskamp. The exterior had evidently been quickly restored, as also shown in an 1831 engraving of the same scene after Robert Batty, Amsterdam, View on the Cingel (sic), where the foreground is occupied by lock gates and an associated building on the right, as loosely indicated by Turner.

Batty had evidently recorded the scene a few years earlier, as the Jan Roodenpoortstoren was demolished in 1829; it stood on the broad Torensluis bridge north-west of the Nieuwe Kerk, where its plan is now marked in contrasting cobbles and its underground prison is accessible.1 At the top right is a slighter variation, this time with indications of an elevating ophaalbrug-type bridge in the foreground, as shown in an undated lithograph of De Haarlemmersluis te Amsterdam after Johannes Hilverdink (1813–1902). A lock remains, south of the Nieuwendijk bridge.

There is an isolated study of the lost tower among other subjects on folio 103 recto (D19043); the dome is occasionally seen on the skyline in views from the River IJ. See under folio 81 recto (D18999) for other sketches in and around the city in this book and elsewhere.