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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Rotterdam Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Witte Poort, Rotterdam 1835

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Witte Poort, Rotterdam’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Verso:
Witte Poort, Rotterdam 1835
D32458
Turner Bequest CCCXXI 8
Pencil on off-white laid paper, 95 x 153 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts Rotterdam’s White Gate (Witte Poort), also known as the Wester Nieuwe Hoofdpoort or New Western Gate. Now demolished, the Witte Poort was a baroque building topped with a cupola and surrounded by windmills, which can be seen in Turner’s sketch at left. According to Fred Bachrach, the two windmills visible here were called ‘De Eenhoorn’ and ‘De Pelicaan’.1 To the right of the Gate is the Stokkenbrug or Sticks Bridge.
1
Bachrach [1974], p.84, pl.82.
Recto:
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘8’ and stamped in black ‘CCCXXI–8’, bottom right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2016

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Witte Poort, Rotterdam 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-witte-poort-rotterdam-r1187278, accessed 18 April 2024.