J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

With the page turned horizontally, the drawing shows the outskirts of Antwerp, likely from outside the north-western range of the city’s lost ring of bastions and ravelins, north of the original harbour basin off the River Scheldt. A bridge, including a short drawbridge, leads over the moat to a rusticated gateway; above, the tower of the Sint-Jacobskerk (St James’s; see also folio 188 verso; D19213), with its twin hipped roofs, is seen in the city centre to the south-south-east. The immediate area has been levelled and developed out of all recognition, but by comparison with maps of the time, this part of the defences would have been around where Amsterdamstraat now runs in the industrial district west of the Kattendijkdok. The view on the recto (D19230) is also likely from near the harbour, and a small study on folio 198 recto opposite (D19232) shows the Sint-Jacobskerk, the cathedral and a harbour building.

At the top left, an inverted spire and other features are continued across the gutter from one of the sketches on folio 198 recto opposite (D19232); they belongs to Antwerp Cathedral, seen from the south on the other page. For other views of the city here and elsewhere, see under folio 188 recto (D19212).