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 St Elizabeth's Church, St Jakob's Church and the Weisser Turm, Nuremberg; the Spittlertor; the Heilig-Geist-Spital and Schuldturm 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Elizabeth's Church, St Jakob's Church and the Weisser Turm, Nuremberg; the Spittlertor; the Heilig-Geist-Spital and Schuldturm’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
St Elizabeth’s Church, St Jakob’s Church and the Weisser Turm, Nuremberg; the Spittlertor; the Heilig-Geist-Spital and Schuldturm 1840
D31334
Turner Bequest CCCX 30
Pencil on cream wove paper, 126 x 198 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘30’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCX – 30’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main view was made with the page turned horizontally, and shows Jakobsplatz, with the neo-classical dome of St Elizabeth’s Church on the left and the west end of the Gothic St Jakob’s Church on the right, with the spire of the Weisser Turm beyond. The latter is repeated above along with a study of the south portico of St Elizabeth’s; trees now partly obscure the view, and later buildings flank the near side of the church.
To the right, separated by a pencil line and made at right-angles (inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation), are slighter studies. The more detailed centres on the cylindrical, multi-storey Spittlertor gate-tower, seen to the south-west from a similar viewpoint to that in the main drawing, possibly with part of St Jakob’s Church in the foreground, although changes to surrounding buildings make this uncertain.
Above (towards the bottom edge of the page) is a completely separate view, showing the view east along the River Pegnitz to where the medieval Heilig-Geist-Spital spans the northern channel to the Schütt island on two arches, with the profile of the Schuldturm gate-tower beyond. These Nuremberg subjects were all identified by Cecilia Powell.1 For a few other views of the city in this sketch book and the more extensive sequence from 1835, see under folio 29 recto (D31332).2

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.243.
2
See also ibid., pp.70, 82 note 55.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘St Elizabeth’s Church, St Jakob’s Church and the Weisser Turm, Nuremberg; the Spittlertor; the Heilig-Geist-Spital and Schuldturm 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-st-elizabeths-church-st-jakobs-church-and-the-weisser-turm-r1196122, accessed 19 April 2024.