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

Used largely horizontally, this somewhat fragmentary and heavily annotated page contains several different Amsterdam subjects. Across the middle, the key scene is a view of the tree-lined Prinsengracht canal (as Turner noted towards the bottom right) west of the city centre, with the Noorderkerk on the right; the tower of the Westerkerk is outlined beyond, as Finberg correctly noted.1 The viewpoint was on or near the Lekkeresluis bridge, looking south-south-west; the height of the Noorderkerk’s cupola is greatly exaggerated for the sake of detailing its various features, while the Westerkerk seems to loom too large in the distance.

At the top left, with the page turned vertically, is a study of the Westerkerk’s soaring 87 metre (286 foot) Baroque tower, the ‘Westertoren’ (occasionally seen in the distance in wider prospects in this sketchbook), shown obliquely across the canal from the north, with its ‘Io[nic]’ and ‘Cor[inthian]’ stages. The same way round at the other outer corner is a small sketch of an unidentified bridge and buildings. Meanwhile, orientated the same way beside the gutter at the opposite corner (at the bottom left relative to the Noorderkerk sketch) is a study of the upper part of the Jan Roodenpoortstoren, which was demolished in 1829; see under folio 98 recto (D19033). The tower stood several canals to the east of the Westerkerk, and was evidently drawn on a separate occasion.

Likewise, the spire nearly colliding at right-angles with the Jan Roodenpoortstoren’s surmounts the cupola of the lost Baroque version of the Haarlemmerpoort gateway, a considerable way north of the Westerkerk; it is a continuation from one of the sketches on folio 102 verso opposite (D19042). Finally, at the bottom right, Turner drew details of the gateway’s heavily articulated west front (labelled ‘H Gate’), including the city’s escutcheon (shield) with three descending St Andrew’s crosses, supported by lions, and part of a rusticated half-column, as shown in an 1854 engraving after Cornelis Springer.

Reproducing details of this page and its verso (D19044) at ‘full size’, Gerald Wilkinson suggested that they ‘show that [Turner’s] sense of design did not sleep while his hand was so busy: we share his pleasure in the intimacies of Dutch architecture’.2 See under folio 81 recto (D18999) for other views in and around Amsterdam in this book and elsewhere.