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 Domstrasse, Würzburg, with the Rathaus, Cathedral and Vierröhrenbrunnen 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Domstrasse, Würzburg, with the Rathaus, Cathedral and Vierröhrenbrunnen’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 89 Verso:
The Domstrasse, Würzburg, with the Rathaus, Cathedral and Vierröhrenbrunnen 1840
D30631
Turner Bequest CCCIII 88a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With his back to the Alte Mainbrücke over the River Main, Turner’s view east along Würzburg’s Domstrasse1 towards the cathedral is part of a double-page drawing made with the sketchbook turned horizontally. This page shows the upper stages of the buildings, while the prospect at street level is continued below, extending about a third of the way across folio 90 recto opposite (D30632; Turner Bequest CCCIII 89). On the left is the soaring tower of the Rathaus, with the four spires of the cathedral in the distance at the centre. In front of the gabled building towards the right, since lost, is the statue at the top of the obelisk of the Vierröhrenbrunnen fountain, south of the Rathaus;2 the shaft is continued opposite.
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 Finberg 1909, II, p.981.
2
See Powell 1995, pp.145, 244.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Domstrasse, Würzburg, with the Rathaus, Cathedral and Vierröhrenbrunnen 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-domstrasse-wurzburg-with-the-rathaus-cathedral-and-r1196387, accessed 27 April 2024.