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 Panoramic View of Würzburg, across the River Main from the Marienberg 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Panoramic View of Würzburg, across the River Main from the Marienberg’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 83 Recto:
A Panoramic View of Würzburg, across the River Main from the Marienberg 1840
D30618
Turner Bequest CCCIII 82
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘C Red’ top centre, and ‘Red’ towards top right, beside towers
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘82’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 82’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner used this page horizontally for what Cecilia Powell has described as a ‘180° View in Two Instalments’, looking east over Würzburg from the heights of the Marienberg fortress.1
At the bottom left of the main section is the Deutschhauskirche on Zellerstrasse (see folio 84 verso; D30621; Turner Bequest CCCIII 83a). The gatehouse at the near end of the Alte Mainbrücke does not survive. North-east above the bridge are the Baroque dome and towers of the Stift Haug church beyond the Baroque spire of the Marienkapelle (since rebuilt in Gothic Revival style). Beyond the end of the bridge are the tower of the Rathaus, with its slender spire, the dome of the Neumünster, and the four spires of the cathedral to their east.
Above, the view is continued south-eastwards to the right, the most prominent feature being the heavily articulated Baroque spire of the Neubaukirche. 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
Powell 1995, p.245.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Panoramic View of Würzburg, across the River Main from the Marienberg 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-panoramic-view-of-wurzburg-across-the-river-main-from-the-r1196374, accessed 27 April 2024.