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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Venice up to Trento Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Herkulesbrunnen Fountain on Maximilianstrasse, Augsburg, with the Rathaus and Perlachturm Beyond 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Herkulesbrunnen Fountain on Maximilianstrasse, Augsburg, with the Rathaus and Perlachturm Beyond’ 1833
Folio 65 Verso:
The Herkulesbrunnen Fountain on Maximilianstrasse, Augsburg, with the Rathaus and Perlachturm Beyond 1833
D31725
Turner Bequest CCCXII 65a
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Street scene. (? Innsbruch.)’), crossing out the last word,1 and adding: ‘Not Innsbruck. Augsburg’.2 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy, again crossing out ‘Innsbruch’, remarking ‘no’, and adding: ‘?Augsburg’.3 For Innsbruck, see under folio 17 recto (D31629); however, as confirmed by Cecilia Powell, the subject here is indeed Augsburg.4
The densely detailed drawing, made with the page turned horizontally, shows the view north along Maximilianstrasse, with the Herkulesbrunnen fountain, featuring Adriaen de Vries’s bronze of Hercules fighting the Hydra, in the right foreground. Twin onion domes flank the Rathaus on the near side of the slender Perlachturm beyond. Buildings with similarly elaborate and varied gables stand immediately to the right of the fountain today, but the street towards the Rathaus is now lined with taller, less ornate façades, precluding an equivalent view of its domes.
There is a smaller, less detailed variant on the recto (D31724). The fountain and its surroundings are seen from other angles on folios 50 verso and 64 recto (D31969, D31722), while there are views northwards from further forward on folios 30 recto and 49 verso (D31655, D31694). For other Augsburg views, see under D31655.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1007.
2
Ibid., opposite p.1007.
3
Undated MS note by Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, p.1007.
4
See Powell 1995, pp.44, 79 note 85, and title caption to fig.28.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Herkulesbrunnen Fountain on Maximilianstrasse, Augsburg, with the Rathaus and Perlachturm Beyond 1833’, catalogue entry, May 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/the-herkulesbrunnen-fountain-on-maximilianstrasse-augsburg-with-the-rathaus-and-r1203920, accessed 25 April 2025.