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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
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Joseph Mallord William Turner Views of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) from the South, with the Cathedral and Rathaus, and the Hills Beyond 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) from the South, with the Cathedral and Rathaus, and the Hills Beyond’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 152 Recto:
Views of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) from the South, with the Cathedral and Rathaus, and the Hills Beyond 1825
D19140
Turner Bequest CCXIV 152
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘52’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXIV – 152’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his basic 1909 Inventory entry (‘Views of Town’): ‘Aachen’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy: ‘Aix-la-Chapelle’.2 The names are German and French equivalents for this, the most westerly city in modern Germany. With the page turned horizontally, there are two separate sketches supplementing the main prospect of the city on folio 151 recto opposite (D19139), from the vicinity of Burtscheid on its south-east side.
At the top, the dome and high east end of Aachen Cathedral (lacking the tall spire subsequently added at its west end) are shown, with the Baroque spires of the Rathaus to the north towards the right; the buildings are shown in less detail at the left-hand edge of the other page. Below, the adjacent Lousberg and Salvatorberg hills above the north side of the city are shown, respectively with what seems to be the Tranchot-Obelisk (now surrounded by woodland) and the spire of the original Salvatorkirche. See under D19139 for Aachen in general and Turner’s few other sketches of the city in this book and elsewhere.3

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p.656.
2
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.656.
3
See also Powell 1995, pp.34, 77 note 21.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Views of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) from the South, with the Cathedral and Rathaus, and the Hills Beyond 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-views-of-aachen-aix-la-chapelle-from-the-south-with-the-r1202492, accessed 16 July 2025.