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

As Cecilia Powell first recognised, this is a view of Würzburg from near the Käppele pilgrimage church,1 looking down from the Nikolausberg over the valley of the River Main. Directly to the north is the Marienberg fortress, with the pale city loosely indicated to the north-east on the opposite bank. Small domed Baroque pavilions line the long sequence of steps and terraces approaching the church from the north-east; as Powell noted: ‘Steps, balustrades and volutes belonging to one of the chapels over the Stations of the Cross are all sketchily indicated on the left, but the church itself with its three onion domes lies beyond the edge of the paper.’2

There are several similar courtyard-like cobbled levels with open pavilions containing devotional statues at the sides and ends, one being shown towards the top left, possibly with a kneeling figure. Large trees now flank the central Stationsweg pathway and staircases; in combination with Turner’s apparent manipulation of perspective in the unresolved foreground, this makes the exact viewpoint difficult to determine. The scene is brightly illuminated by early afternoon sunlight, with various features highlighted in white against the clear sky.

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). There are two watercolour and gouache studies on grey and blue papers (respectively the present work and Tate D36157; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 300), one on blue in pencil alone (D25101; CCLXII 1), and two variant pencil drawings on larger sheets of white (Tate D34515, D34516; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 151, 152). All show the Marienberg on the left, with the city below to the east, as do two similar watercolours (currently untraced;3 National Museum Wales, Cardiff4), ‘probably painted over pencil sketches drawn on the spot’, as Powell has noted.5

Powell pictured ‘a point when Turner could bear the confinement of his small sketchbook no longer’,6 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).7

D36157, the variant on blue paper mentioned above, shows the prospect in shadow from a little higher, flanked by one of the Käppele’s towers at the left and with only the uppermost part of the Marienberg catching the light against a glowing sky, suggests an early morning effect. The pencil work on all three coloured sheets 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, D25101 and D36157 are of mid-toned blue paper (only occasionally associated with this tour) rather that the grey Turner customarily used in 1840 (see the technical notes), which suited the richer, darker colours he subsequently applied, contrasted with the radiant effect here.

Technical notes:

Among many such works on the blue or grey papers customarily used by Turner, this is one of five originally from a single piece (Tate D32186–D32188, D32190, D36158; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 7–9, 11; CCCLXIV 301) to be identified by Cecilia Powell as showing Coburg and Würzburg subjects.1 They are neatly torn eighths of a sheet of grey Bally, Ellen and Steart paper, likely made in 18292 (albeit none of these sections bears a watermark), of the type often used in 1840 (see the Introduction to the overall tour).3

Before their subjects and dates were firmly established, Andrew Wilton had suggested a technical link between this work and D36157 (the variant discussed above) among several ‘on the Rhine and at Botzen’ (Tate D36149–D36158; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 292–301) and Venetian subjects of 1840 on similar grey sheets;4 most have since been confirmed as subjects from this tour. Noting Finberg’s provisional mingling of the then unidentified German views (‘placed here because they seem to have been done at the same time’)5 with Venice subjects in section CCCXVII of the 1909 Inventory, Powell concurred that ‘there are, indeed, strong resemblances of both palette and expression between the four Coburg [and single Würzburg] drawings and the much larger Venetian group’. She suggested that the other three eights of the sheet had likely been used in Venice,6 although this possibility was not addressed specifically in Ian Warrell’s subsequent checklist of the Bally, Ellen and Steart sheets Turner used there.7

Verso:

Blank; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCLXIV – 301’ and inscribed in pencil ‘D36158’ bottom right.