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

With the page turned horizontally, near the centre is the large onion dome of Bregenz’s Martinsturm. Towards the right the smaller dome of the Deuringschlössle, a large fortified house (latterly a hotel) high on Bregenz’s Oberstadt, is seen from the north with the Gebhardsberg mountain rising beyond; Edward Yardley has called it a ‘very freely worked interpretation’ of the view.1 Despite suggesting Bregenz as the subject of subsequent sketches, Finberg somewhat whimsically transcribed Turner’s scrawled inscription as ‘Borgeley (?)’,2 though it appears to read ‘Bergentz’. The two domes are seen from a different angle on folio 2 verso (D32266), under which further drawings on adjacent pages and four Bregenz watercolours on blue paper are noted.3 The spire at the bottom right is a brief continuation from the view of Burg Hohenbregenz on folio 4 recto opposite (D32269).

Barbara Dawson has related this page and folio 4 verso (D32270) to one of the contemporary watercolours (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin),4 although the topographical correspondence is not especially close.