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

With the page turned horizontally, the most prominent building is Amsterdam’s Royal Palace, with its west and south fronts seen obliquely to the north-north-east beyond one or two moored boats. Ian Warrell has identified the viewpoint as ‘the Flower Market on the Nieuwezijds Voorburgwal’1 canal, which then ran below the rear of the palace, and has since been filled in. A similar row of gabled houses still runs along east side of this part of the street, although it is not clear if any are those that Turner recorded.

Above, there are details of the palace including the ‘Corin[thian]’ capital below the left-hand end of the pediment, and notes of ‘8’ and ‘4’ referring to the regular articulation of the façade. The details above the cupola’s dome, with an ‘Eagle [?bearing] a Crown’, differ from those at the same point today (a gilded pineapple-like finial supporting a weathervane in the form of a ship). The east front of the palace is shown on folio 98 verso opposite (D19034), and the verso of this leaf includes a closer study of the part shown here (D19036). See under folio 81 recto (D18999) for other views in and around the city in this book and elsewhere.