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

This sketch of Liège taken from Maastricht quay looking down the Meuse may be related to a gouache, pen and ink, and watercolour drawing on blue paper of the city taken from a similar viewpoint (Tate D24664; Turner Bequest CCLIX 99).

The defensive fortress or citadel can be seen atop the heights in the background and beneath it, a parade of buildings similar to those on folio 13 (Tate D28066; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 13) line the left bank of the river. The Maison Curtius, built in around 1600 for the wealthy Liègeois patrician and manufacturer Jean Curtius (1551–1628), is the large house at the centre of the composition with a steeply pitched roof, tall chimney, and rows of cross-mullioned windows.1

For other drawings of Liège in this sketchbook see the following folios: Tate D28066, D28068, D28070–D28074; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 13, 14, 15–17. For Turner’s earlier views of the city see the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19598, D19636–D19638, D20061–D20064; Turner Bequest CCXVI 24, 43a–44a, 260a–262); the Huy and Dinant sketchbook of the same date (Tate D20084, D20095–D20103; Turner Bequest CCXVII 1, 8–12); the Holland, Meuse and Cologne sketchbook of 1825 (Tate D19446–D19447, D19520–D19521; Turner Bequest CCXV 25a–26, 71a–72); and the Holland sketchbook of the same date (Tate D19160; Turner Bequest CCXIV 162). There are also drawings of Liège in the 1833 Brussels up to Mannheim–Rhine sketchbook (Tate D29669–D29670, D29673; Turner Bequest CCXCVI 37a–38, 39a).