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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Oudegracht, Utrecht, with the Tower of the Cathedral (Domtoren) in the Distance; Details of Gabled Façades 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Oudegracht, Utrecht, with the Tower of the Cathedral (Domtoren) in the Distance; Details of Gabled Façades’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 127 Verso:
?The Oudegracht, Utrecht, with the Tower of the Cathedral (Domtoren) in the Distance; Details of Gabled Façades 1825
D19091
Turner Bequest CCXIV 127a
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?D | Y]’ centre right, below architectural details
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the rapidly rendered view, perhaps drawn in low light, likely shows the tower of Utrecht Cathedral (the Domtoren) in the distance beyond a bridge and houses. If so, the viewpoint was presumably along the Oudegracht canal; compared a detailed two-page view in the 1817 Dort sketchbook (Tate D13126–D13127; Turner Bequest CLXII 68a–69). To the right are details of what appear to be elaborately gabled façades.
There is a variant on folio 126 verso, briefly continued on the recto of this leaf (D19089–D19090). For confirmed views of Utrecht in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 128 verso (D19093).
Technical notes:
There is irregular brown staining to the outer half of the page; it appears to have soaked through from the recto (D19090), where the corresponding edges are more defined. It is offset in turn onto folio 128 recto opposite (D19092), and was likely caused by the 1928 Tate Gallery flood.

Matthew Imms
September 2020

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?The Oudegracht, Utrecht, with the Tower of the Cathedral (Domtoren) in the Distance; Details of Gabled Façades 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-oudegracht-utrecht-with-the-tower-of-the-cathedral-r1202443, accessed 17 June 2025.