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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Venice; Passau to Würzburg Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Obere Pfarrkirche, Bamberg; the Altes Rathaus on the River Regnitz; the Cathedral; a Hilly Landscape 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Obere Pfarrkirche, Bamberg; the Altes Rathaus on the River Regnitz; the Cathedral; a Hilly Landscape’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Recto:
The Obere Pfarrkirche, Bamberg; the Altes Rathaus on the River Regnitz; the Cathedral; a Hilly Landscape 1840
D31328
Turner Bequest CCCX 27
Pencil on cream wove paper, 198 x 126 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘27’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCX – 27’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Cecilia Powell has identified the various subjects around Bamberg recorded here.1 At the top is the uphill view south-west along Unterer Kaulberg past the apsidal east end and flying buttresses of the Gothic Obere Pfarrkirche. At the bottom of the page, the other way up, is a similarly detailed study of the Altes Rathaus, seen from the south set between bridges in the middle of the River Regnitz. Squeezed in at the corner, the other way up, is a distant prospect of the Cathedral, with its unusual cluster of four spires.
With the page turned horizontally and the fore-edge at the bottom, a fourth drawing shows is slight study of a rolling landscape, with what is likely the outline of a castle or church with a spire at the left. For numerous other Bamberg views in this sketchbook, see under folio 19 recto (D31312).2

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, pp.144, 243.
2
See also ibid., pp.71, 82 note 58.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Obere Pfarrkirche, Bamberg; the Altes Rathaus on the River Regnitz; the Cathedral; a Hilly Landscape 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-obere-pfarrkirche-bamberg-the-altes-rathaus-on-the-river-r1196116, accessed 26 April 2024.