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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > European River and Lowland Scenes > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A City and its Cathedral with a Landscape in the Distance c.1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A City and its Cathedral with a Landscape in the Distance’ c.1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A City and its Cathedral with a Landscape in the Distance c.1824
D20346
Turner Bequest CCXXIV 52
Pencil on blue wove paper, 140 x 195 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCXXIV 52’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The right third of the sheet features a cathedral with a dome, two bell-towers, and a pedimented façade. A line of trees leads down into the lower section of the town from the bottom left. A church steeple and the outline of other buildings appear in this lower section. Midway between the cathedral and the town below, another level with more houses on it is shown to the left. Four sweeping diagonals in the bottom right may serve for the purpose of establishing perspective or perhaps suggest the ledge of a balcony in the foreground.
There is a sketch of an unrelated subject on the verso (D20347; CCXXIV 52v).
For the grouping and dating of these works, see the section Introduction.

Ben Pollitt
August 2019

How to cite

Ben Pollitt, ‘A City and its Cathedral with a Landscape in the Distance c.1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-city-and-its-cathedral-with-a-landscape-in-the-distance-r1202101, accessed 09 May 2024.