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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Würzburg, from the West Bank of the River Main North of the Alte Mainbrücke 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Würzburg, from the West Bank of the River Main North of the Alte Mainbrücke’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 86 Recto:
Würzburg, from the West Bank of the River Main North of the Alte Mainbrücke 1840
D30624
Turner Bequest CCCIII 85
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Boat load of [?Timber]’ bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘85’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 85’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the view is down the Main from the West Bank north of Würzburg’s Alte Mainbrücke, with the northern end of the city seen to the north-east across the busy scene river to the right,1 dominated by the Baroque spire of the Marienkapelle (topped by a gilded statue of the Madonna and later rebuilt in the Gothic Revival style).
On the left are the outer riverside defences of the Marienberg fortress complex, which now stand in reduced from between Dreikronenstrasse and a tree-lined riverside walk. The projecting bastion and turret in the middle distance survive; on their near side is a heavily articulated Baroque gateway which is not readily identifiable.
For the extensive sequence of Würzburg views in this sketchbook and others elsewhere, see under folio 72 verso (D30596; CCCIII 71).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.244.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Würzburg, from the West Bank of the River Main North of the Alte Mainbrücke 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-wurzburg-from-the-west-bank-of-the-river-main-north-of-the-r1196380, accessed 27 April 2024.