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 ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Street in Ostend, with a Tower and a Distant Spire 1840

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Street in Ostend, with a Tower and a Distant Spire’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Recto:
A Street in Ostend, with a Tower and a Distant Spire 1840
D30487
Turner Bequest CCCIII 15
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘15’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 15’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. It likely shows a street in Ostend, with a tower with a polygonal cupola in the foreground, and probably the spire of the old St Peter’s Church (the only part to survive the building’s subsequent destruction) in the distance. The old part of the town has seen much change and development generally, and the exact subject is as yet unconfirmed. For numerous Ostend views on adjacent pages of this sketchbook, marking the end of Turner’s 1840 tour, see under folio 1 recto (D30460).
Technical notes:
There is some brown staining around the outer edges, probably dating from the 1928 Tate Gallery flood.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Street in Ostend, with a Tower and a Distant Spire 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-a-street-in-ostend-with-a-tower-and-a-distant-spire-r1196247, accessed 26 April 2024.