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

Turner’s viewpoint here is the Close south-east of Lichfield Cathedral, looking along the south side to the transept and south-west spire. The drawing appears slightly disjointed, and he may have been moving around to compile a composite view, as the Lady Chapel at the east end and the adjacent flying buttresses on the right appear to have been drawn from further north than the transept, chapel and tower at the centre. Turner’s ‘8’ indicates the windows in the main body of the cathedral east of the tower, while his ‘6’ apparently notes the six vertical lights below the rapidly sketched upper tracery of the second window in the Lady Chapel.

There is almost a mirror image of this sketch on the recto (D22069), where the building is seen from the north-east. For other views of Lichfield, see under folio 50 verso opposite (D22068).