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, with the Marienberg, St Burkard's Church, the Alte Mainbrücke, Rathaus, Marienkapelle, Neumünster and Cathedral, from the Southern End of the Oberer Mainkai 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Würzburg, with the Marienberg, St Burkard's Church, the Alte Mainbrücke, Rathaus, Marienkapelle, Neumünster and Cathedral, from the Southern End of the Oberer Mainkai’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 84 Recto:
Würzburg, with the Marienberg, St Burkard’s Church, the Alte Mainbrücke, Rathaus, Marienkapelle, Neumünster and Cathedral, from the Southern End of the Oberer Mainkai 1840
D30620
Turner Bequest CCCIII 83
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Water Rubbish [...]’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘83’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 83’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell has noted,1 this two-part horizontal panorama takes in numerous prominent Würzburg landmarks. In the main view, the frequently drawn Marienberg fortress is seen from a particularly dramatic angle, with the succession of bastions at its south-eastern corner seen across the River Main from about where the later Ludwigsbrücke crosses from the Oberer Mainkai. Overlooking the river at the bottom left is St Burkard’s Church.
Above is a continuation to the right, looking south, with the Alte Mainbrücke leading to the tower of the Rathaus and the spire of the Marienkapelle, with the dome of the Neumünster and western spires of the cathedral to their right. Turner has made a written note of some debris in the river.
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.245.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Würzburg, with the Marienberg, St Burkard’s Church, the Alte Mainbrücke, Rathaus, Marienkapelle, Neumünster and Cathedral, from the Southern End of the Oberer Mainkai 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-with-the-marienberg-st-burkards-church-the-alte-r1196376, accessed 23 April 2024.