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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner

Joseph Mallord William Turner Antwerp: The Suikerrui and Cathedral of Our Lady 1817

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Antwerp: The Suikerrui and Cathedral of Our Lady’ 1817
Folio 3 Recto:
Antwerp: The Suikerrui and Cathedral of Our Lady 1817
D13000
Turner Bequest CLXII 3
Pencil on ‘blue’ laid writing paper, 93 x 156 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Suyker Ruy | Canal au [or ‘du’] Sucre’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CLXII – 3’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, as noted by Turner, this sketch is taken from the Suikerrui, a medieval street in central Antwerp running from the Grote Markt to the River Scheldt. The single completed tower of the two at the west end of the Cathedral of Our Lady, here just visible above tall gabled houses on the left, extends to folio 2 verso opposite (D12999) where it is drawn in some detail; the small spire of its lower counterpart is confined to the top centre here.
Today the view is very different, the Suikerrui having been extensively altered between 1817 and 1885, with further changed since while the canal network has been reduced. A silhouette of the cathedral can be seen in Turner’s later painting [Antwerp;] Van Goyen Looking out for a Subject (Frick Collection, New York).1 For Antwerp in this sketchbook see notes to D12999 opposite.

Quirine van der Meer Mohr
December 2013

Revised by David Blayney Brown
September 2025

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.201‒2 no.350, pl.354.

How to cite

Quirine van der Meer Mohr, ‘Antwerp: The Suikerrui and Cathedral of Our Lady 1817’, catalogue entry, December 2013, revised by David Blayney Brown, September 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, June 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/antwerp-the-suikerrui-and-cathedral-of-our-lady-r1212375, accessed 31 July 2026.