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 Würzburg, up the River Main from the Steinberg, with the Infirmary in the Foreground 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Würzburg, up the River Main from the Steinberg, with the Infirmary in the Foreground’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 78 Recto:
Würzburg, up the River Main from the Steinberg, with the Infirmary in the Foreground 1840
D30608
Turner Bequest CCCIII 77
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘77’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 77’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawings between folios 74 recto and 79 recto (D30600–D30610; Turner Bequest CCCIII 73–78), all made with the pages turned horizontally, are distant views of Würzburg, looking south from the sweeping north-westerly bend of the River Main, where the Steinberg and sloping vineyards still provide similar vantage points.
Cecilia Powell has identified the building with a spire in the foreground as ‘the infirmary’; beyond are the towers and spires of central Würzburg on the east bank, with the Marienberg fortress rising on the opposite side to the right.
For the extensive sequence of Würzburg views in this sketchbook and others elsewhere, see under folio 72 verso (D30596; CCCIII 71).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Würzburg, up the River Main from the Steinberg, with the Infirmary in the Foreground 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-wurzburg-up-the-river-main-from-the-steinberg-with-the-r1196364, accessed 23 April 2024.