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

The view shows Würzburg from near the Käppele pilgrimage church, looking down from the Nikolausberg over the valley of the River Main. Directly to the north is the Marienberg fortress, with the bridge to the city below, and a detail of buildings there or within the fortress itself towards the top right. In the lower foreground are loose indications of the long balustraded sequence of steps and terraces up the Stationsweg to the church; the approach is lined with domed pavilions containing sculptures of the Stations of the Cross, although there is little to indicate them here.

Turner was recorded in Würzburg on 23 September 1840, and after rounding off the southern German pages of his Venice; Passau to Würzburg sketchbook with a view from his hotel (Tate D31376; Turner Bequest CCCX 51), he filled about a quarter of his tour’s final book, Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend, with a thorough survey in and around the picturesque city; see under Tate D30596 (Turner Bequest CCCIII 71). As well as this drawing, there are two watercolour and gouache studies on blue and grey papers (respectively Tate D36157 and D36158; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 300, 301), and two variant pencil drawings on larger sheets of white (D34515, D34516; CCCXLIV 151, 152). All show the Marienberg on the left, with the city below to the east, as do two watercolours (currently untraced;1 National Museum Wales, Cardiff2), ‘probably painted over pencil sketches drawn on the spot’, as Powell has noted.3 The subject of the present variant, placed arbitrarily with other drawings of similar sizes on blue paper in a small and somewhat miscellaneous grouping of landscapes and coastal scenes in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory (Turner Bequest CCLXII),4 does not appear to have been recognised previously.

Powell pictured ‘a point when Turner could bear the confinement of his small sketchbook no longer’,5 and the views on the separate sheets are independent of those in the Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend book. The Marienberg appears many times within it, but only D30620 (CCCIII 83) shows it with the city from the south, from down on the opposite bank of the Main; D30630 (CCCIII 88) is among sketches showing the distant Käppele beyond the fortress to the south-west, looking back in the opposite direction.

Three pencil sketches of superficially similar scenes on separate sheets, suggested by Finberg as Würzburg subjects, await identification (Tate D33691, D34026, D34027; Turner Bequest CCCXLI 15, 307, 308).6

The present work is in pencil alone, and is closest in composition to D36157, the coloured variant on blue paper mentioned above, where the composition is framed by part of the Käppele at the left-hand edge. It shows the fortress in deep shadow against a glowing sky, suggesting an early morning effect, while D36158, on grey, shows the scene brightly illuminated by early afternoon sunlight, with white highlights. The pencil work in all three is similarly detailed, but they are not reliant on each other, their foregrounds indicating that they were begun from slightly different viewpoints. Whether fortuitously or not, the present sheet and D36157 are of mid-toned blue paper rather that the grey Turner customarily used on this tour (see under D36158). Blue paper, similar to sheets he used extensively on other occasions, was only used for a handful of works associated with this tour; see the overall Introduction.

Technical notes:

The right-hand and bottom edges are slightly irregular, being the unfinished edges of the larger original sheet from which this piece was neatly torn along folds or a straight edge along the other two sides. There is an irregular diagonal tear towards the top left, starting from the top edge about 90 mm from the corner, although it is not readily evident as the sheet has been firmly stuck down (see below), and it does not impinge on the pencil work.

Verso:

Presumed blank; laid down on a neatly trimmed later sheet of heavy white wove paper (207 x 294 mm), leaving a margin of between 5 and 10 mm around the edges. There is white tape along the top and bottom, traces of it at the left and residue of paper over it on the right from previous mounting. Backing stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXII – 1’ towards bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘D25101’ bottom centre.