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 Views with Sailing Barges Moored off Gabled Buildings along the Sint-Pietersvliet Canal, Antwerp, with the Sint-Pauluskerk and Cathedral Beyond 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views with Sailing Barges Moored off Gabled Buildings along the Sint-Pietersvliet Canal, Antwerp, with the Sint-Pauluskerk and Cathedral Beyond’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 194 Recto:
Views with Sailing Barges Moored off Gabled Buildings along the Sint-Pietersvliet Canal, Antwerp, with the Sint-Pauluskerk and Cathedral Beyond 1825
D19224
Turner Bequest CCXIV 194
Pencil on white wove paper, 155 x 95 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Canal St Pirre [sic] | St Peters Vliet’ top centre, and ‘wood’ and ‘stone’ below centre, over roofs
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘94’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCXIV – 194’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the two related subjects are continued across folio 193 verso opposite (D19223). As specified by Turner’s annotations, likely taken from bilingual street signs, the setting for the upper view was the short Canal St Pierre, shown on maps of the time off the River Scheldt north-west of the centre of Antwerp. Since filled in, it is commemorated in its Dutch street-name, Sint-Pietersvliet. Later buildings preclude the southward prospect to the Gothic Sint-Pauluskerk (St Paul’s), with its Baroque spire shown beyond the north transept. Antwerp Cathedral is seen in the distance on the other page.
The lower drawing seems to be a variant, looking further left towards the foreground. There are studies in the immediate vicinity of the church on folio 195 verso (D19227); for other views of Antwerp here and elsewhere, see under folio 188 recto (D19212).

Matthew Imms and Quirine van der Meer Mohr
September 2020

How to cite

Matthew Imms and Quirine van der Meer Mohr, ‘Views with Sailing Barges Moored off Gabled Buildings along the Sint-Pietersvliet Canal, Antwerp, with the Sint-Pauluskerk and Cathedral 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-with-sailing-barges-moored-off-gabled-buildings-along-r1202576, accessed 29 June 2025.