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 Alte Mainbrücke, Würzburg, with the Rathaus and Cathedral Beyond 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Alte Mainbrücke, Würzburg, with the Rathaus and Cathedral Beyond’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 82 Recto:
The Alte Mainbrücke, Würzburg, with the Rathaus and Cathedral Beyond 1840
D30616
Turner Bequest CCCIII 81
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 ‘81’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 81’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (Do. [i.e. ditto: Buildings at Würzburg]): ‘Alte Mainbrücke’.1 Finberg marked another copy in a similar way.2 As Cecilia Powell has also noted,3 this rapid sketch, made with the page turned horizontally, shows the view from the Alte Mainbrücke over the River Main, flanked by monumental statues on its cutwaters, east to tower of the Rathaus and beyond to the west spires of the cathedral. To the left are the Baroque spire of the Marienkapelle (since rebuilt in Gothic Revival style) and, further off, the dome of the Neumünster. There is a watermill below to the left, presumably taking advantage of the faster flow as the river passes to the left under the multiple arches. A larger mill building now projects over the river at this point.
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
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.981.
2
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.981.
3
See Powell 1995, p.245.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Alte Mainbrücke, Würzburg, with the Rathaus and Cathedral Beyond 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-alte-mainbrucke-wurzburg-with-the-rathaus-and-cathedral-r1196372, accessed 12 May 2024.