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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Liège from the Pont des Arches c.1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Liège from the Pont des Arches c.1839
D24664
Turner Bequest CCLIX 99
Gouache, pen and ink and watercolour on blue wove paper, 141 x 191 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts the Belgian city of Liège with the River Meuse, its fluvial artery, at centre. The view is taken from the ancient Pont des Arches and incorporates part of the Outremeuse, a lushly verdant river island, at right. Some of the city’s principal monuments can be seen at centre, rendered cursorily in pale apricot and terracotta gouache with red ink. The illuminated rectangular tower situated towards the left is the Tour Saint-Denis, and next to it is the dome of St Andrew’s Church. Beside the church is the Maison Curtius, a building erected in around 1600 in the Mosan Renaissance architectural style.1 It was constructed as the home of the wealthy Liégeois patrician and manufacturer, Jean Curtius (1551–1628). To the right of the Maison is the tapering and slender spire of St Pault’s Cathedral, and finally, crowning the heights in the distance, is Liège citadel.
Liège is pictured in another gouache of 1839, showing the city from its outskirts with factories in the foreground (see Tate D20283; Turner Bequest CCXXII K).
Verso:
Stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCLIX 99’ at centre towards bottom; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLIX 99’ at bottom right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
June 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Liège from the Pont des Arches c.1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-liege-from-the-pont-des-arches-r1150994, accessed 19 September 2024.