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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Nuremberg: View from the Maxbrücke Looking North-West to the Kettensteg 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Nuremberg: View from the Maxbrücke Looking North-West to the Kettensteg’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Recto:
Nuremberg: View from the Maxbrücke Looking North-West to the Kettensteg 1835
D30738
Turner Bequest CCCIV 57
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘[H]onig’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Der Kettensteg’ top centre
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘57’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCIV–57’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
From a vantage point on the Maxbrücke, here Turner depicts a view up the Pegnitz River in central Nuremberg. The large stone arch topped with a gable roof is the Fronveste, which was part of the city’s network of fortifications. In front of it, at the base of the arch, is the Kettensteg (inscribed by Turner ‘Der Kettensteg’). This was Germany’s first free-floating iron suspension bridge, opened in 1824 to replace medieval wooden footbridge. The tower at right is probably the Hallertor which was also part of Nuremberg’s fortifications.
For more views of the city see Tate D30707–D30711, D30713, D30715–D30718, D30720–D30726, D30729–D30730; Turner Bequest CCCIV 40a–42a, 44, 45–46a, 47a–50a, 52–52a.

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Nuremberg: View from the Maxbrücke Looking North-West to the Kettensteg 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-nuremberg-view-from-the-maxbrucke-looking-north-west-to-the-r1187113, accessed 04 April 2026.