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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Spa, Dinant and Namur Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Distant Views of Spa 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Distant Views of Spa’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 19 Recto:
Two Distant Views of Spa 1839
D28078
Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 19
Pencil on white wove writing paper, 94 x 154 mm
Watermarked ‘John Fe[llows] | 18[10] | r’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘350’ bottom right and ‘19’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXVII–19’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Rendered in fine, deliberate line but left largely undeveloped, Turner here depicts the town of Spa in the Walloon region of Belgium, a site famed for its healing mineral springs. With the sketchbook orientated horizontally, the narrower of the two sketches runs parallel to the gutter and offers an extensive panorama. The sketch above it incorporates an outline of the architecture of Spa and an impression of the hillside rising above the town centre.
For other views of Spa in this sketchbook see Tate D28082–D28083, D28086–D28092, D28107–D28116; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 21–21a, 23–6, 34a–39a.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Two Distant Views of Spa 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-distant-views-of-spa-r1150352, accessed 26 April 2024.