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 from the Banks of the River Main North of the City 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Würzburg from the Banks of the River Main North of the City’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 78 Verso:
Würzburg from the Banks of the River Main North of the City 1840
D30609
Turner Bequest CCCIII 77a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘River in front’ top centre, ‘1’ bottom left, ‘2’ top left, ‘River Main’ centre left, and ‘River Main’ towards bottom centre
 
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 along the sweeping north-westerly bend of the River Main, where the Steinberg and sloping vineyards still provide similar vantage points.
Here, as Cecilia Powell has noted,1 the panoramic subject is in two parts, labelled ‘1’ and ‘2’ by the artist. The main view shows the slender Pleichertor with city centre spires beyond on the east bank, the Alte Mainbrücke, and the Marienberg fortress rising to their west, with the twin spires of the Schottenkirche on the near side. Above to the left, the view is continued to the western end of the Marienberg, again with the river in the foreground. As Powell has noted, Turner’s ‘River in front’ at the top centre is a note to the similar drawing on folio 79 recto opposite (D30610; CCCIII 78).
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

1
See Powell 1995, p.245.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Würzburg from the Banks of the River Main North of the City 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-from-the-banks-of-the-river-main-north-of-the-city-r1196365, accessed 19 September 2024.