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 The Marienkapelle, Würzburg, from the Market Place, with Details 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Marienkapelle, Würzburg, from the Market Place, with Details’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Verso:
The Marienkapelle, Würzburg, from the Market Place, with Details 1840
D30615
Turner Bequest CCCIII 80a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Doric’ towards top left, by cupola
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell has noted,1 the main subject, drawn with the page turned horizontally, is the Gothic Marienkapelle on the north side of Würzburg’s Marktplatz, seen from the south-west. The elaborate Baroque spire recorded here, complete with a detail of its ‘Doric’ cupola, was later completely rebuilt with a slender Gothic Revival steeple. Turner’s interest seems to have waned, as there is no indication of the elaborate surround of the west door, with its deep tympanum, which would feature below the slender window at the near end.
Nor is there much architectural context; the wider market place, including a prominent obelisk fountain, is seen in the only view of the city in the contemporary Venice; Passau to Würzburg sketchbook (Tate D31376; Turner Bequest CCCX 51), the viewpoint of which was Turner’s hotel. For the extensive sequence of Würzburg views in this sketchbook and others elsewhere, see under folio 72 verso (D30596; CCCIII 71), where the other end of the church is shown.
The significance of the lightly drawn, apparently architectural, secondary sketch at the top right is unclear.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.245.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Marienkapelle, Würzburg, from the Market Place, with Details 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-marienkapelle-wurzburg-from-the-market-place-with-r1196371, accessed 23 September 2024.