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

The drawings are inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation. Cecilia Powell has identified the subjects here and on folio 156 opposite (D19148) as ‘a careful record of the Maison Curtius at Liège, with each of the numerous small reliefs of men, birds and animals on its façade being drawn separately and named’.1 She observed that on this 1825 tour Turner ‘was studying Cologne [see under folio 141 recto; D19118], Aachen [see under folio 151 verso; D19139] and Liège for the third time and his sketches ... suggest that he deliberately paid close attention to all these sights, as though compensating for having neglected them in 1824’.2 1817 had been the first occasion, when he passed through or by the city of Liège (variously ‘Luik’ in Dutch, ‘Lidje’ in Walloon, and ‘Lüttich‘ in German), in the francophone Wallonia region of modern Belgium, on his way to and from the River Rhine3 without making any identified drawings. A few miles further south than Cologne and Aachen, it marked the southern limit of the present tour.

The substantial, richly ornamented Maison Curtius was built around 1600 of bright red brick dressed in pale stone in the regional Mosan or Maasland Renaissance style; it is now home to the Grand Curtius museum,4 overlooking the north bank of the River Meuse downriver of the Pont des Arches, not far north-east of the city centre. Three bands of idiosyncratic low-relief carvings feature over the windows of the principal storeys, each with horizontal figurative plaques alternating with full-face heads. Filling the upper half of the page, Turner somewhat unsystematically recorded many of them in eight rows, the gradually waning detail perhaps indicating a corresponding decline in his initially keen-eyed interest.

Various tiny creatures and figures (some evidently representing legends or fables) and intervening faces are augmented by selective annotations: ‘Ox’, ‘Mermaid’, ‘Fox & Crow’, ‘[?Esk mask]’, ‘Fox Stork’, ‘Gorge [sic] and Dragon | D[...]’, ‘Cock’, ‘Peacock’, ‘[...] Masks’, ‘Dove’, ‘Day’, ‘Lion Head [?up the side]’, ‘Pig [?Feather] Cocks Horn Blow’. Today, as perhaps then, selected elements are picked out in colours. There are similar sequences along all four sides of the building, although Turner’s sketches clearly begin with the top left of the uninterrupted south front facing the quay, and they likely all relate to this most accessible aspect. Compare his close attention to heraldic reliefs over Dordrecht’s Groothoofdspoort gateway on folio 48 verso (D18934). Below is an oblique view along the main frontage, looking south-west up the river towards the bridge, with the spire of the cathedral in the distance, and there are studies of the house’s architecture on folio 156 recto opposite (D19148).

Although the buildings recorded on the recto (D19146) were likely observed nearby, these are the first clearly identifiable studies at Liège. Turner had travelled south-south-west from Aachen, the most westerly of German cities, presumably on the thirty-mile coach route through Battice.5 He undertook a detailed survey of the centre of the city from along the Meuse, and drew prospects from the heights flanking its north and west: see folios 156 recto–168 verso (D19148–D19173), except 164 verso (D19165, a stray view of Cologne), folios 170 verso, 171 verso–173 recto and 174 verso (D19177, D19179–D19182, D19185), and possibly 175 recto (D19186). For complementary views in the larger contemporary Holland, Meuse and Cologne sketchbook, see under Tate D19442 (Turner Bequest CCXV 23a).

The 1824 visit had been recorded in scattered sketches in the Rivers Meuse and Moselle book (Tate D19592, D19596, D19598, D19636–D19638, D20060–D20064; Turner Bequest CCXVI 21, 23, 24, 43a–44a, 260–262) and the Huy and Dinant book (D20084, D20095–D20103; CCXVII 1, 8–12). Of these, D20062 (CCXVI 261) comprises careful if fragmentary studies of the Maison Curtius, including a smaller annotated selection of the relief sculptures, while D20061 and D20096–D20097 (CCXVI 260a, CCXVII 8a–9) are views along the river towards the bridge from nearby, along with D20063 (CCXVI 261a), from further that way.

Central Liège stands north-west of the broad river; its course remains sinuous, but maps from Turner’s time show it as even more meandering, deviating from today’s gentle north-eastward bends to flow north towards the centre along the southern section of what is now the Boulevard d’Avroy, then turning more tightly eastwards along what became the Boulevard Piercot, before continuing on its present course. Some of the Turner’s views look along the horseshoe-shaped backwater which looped clockwise around the low-lying Isle de Liège district centred on the cathedral, along the northern end of the Boulevard d’Avroy, around the Boulevard de la Sauvenière and down the Rue de la Régence, re-joining the river just short of the Pont des Arches, then the only bridge on the main channel.6 By the late 1830s, the ‘horseshoe’ had been filled in, and the bend in the main channel was subsequently lessened. In 1839, on his last visit Turner drew the new Pont de la Boverie from near the viewpoint of some of the sketches from the present tour (see under folio 166 verso; D19169).

Neighbouring Seraing, just upstream, was already becoming a major centre for iron and steel production, powered by local coal mines. However, Turner focused largely on the more picturesque historic elements of Liège and its setting, with its many Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque churches, medieval river defences and the varied façades of riverside houses (most of which do not survive), set below the dramatically sited Citadel (now crowned by tower blocks) and other fortifications, reflecting the city’s strategic importance in relation to nearby Dutch and German provinces. The churches are much as he knew them, but later roads, railways and tower blocks, urban expansion and redevelopment make some viewpoints hard to establish precisely.

From here, Turner travelled north-north-east to Maastricht (see under folio 179 verso; D19195), some fourteen miles on the map but rather further down the winding Meuse, along a route recorded among various sketches after folio 168 verso (D19173), although some of the subjects are uncertain. Turner’s next visit to Liège was in 1833, with the Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine sketchbook (Tate D29669–D29670, D29673; CCXCVI 37a–38, 39a). In 1839 he used the Spa, Dinant and Namur book (D28066, D28068, D28070–D28074, D28076, D28136; CCLXXXVII 13, 14, 15–17, 18, 50). Two gouache and watercolour views on blue paper associated with that last tour encompass the dual aspects which engaged the artist over the years: a quiet Meuse scene near the Maison Curtius (Tate D24664; Turner Bequest CCLIX 99), and an elevated prospect over the city and the broad valley (D20283; CCXXII X), with factory chimneys in the foreground.

Three loosely finished 1820s watercolours with distant hilltop fortifications beyond a river valley (Tate D20212–D20214; Turner Bequest CCXX F, G, H), tentatively linked with Liège by Finberg,7 have more recently been thought to be French subjects, but are at time of writing listed as showing Carisbrooke Castle on the Isle of Wight; they await further investigation.