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

Here Turner has made detailed drawings of two of Louvain’s most famous buildings: its Town Hall and St Peter’s Church taken, as Cecilia Powell writes, from the north-east corner of the market place. On the left Turner depicts the soaring choir of St Peter’s, constructed largely in the fifteenth century in the Brabantine Gothic style.1 Its flying buttresses and side chapels rise loftily above houses built in traditional Flemish style. The church is depicted again on the following two folios (Tate D28046, D28047; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 3, 3a).

The ornate Stadhuis or Town Hall is represented on the right. Built in the Brabantine Late Gothic style between 1448 and 1469, Turner has attempted to render the wealth of lace-like architectural detailing, carved decoration and statuary which line the façades of each of its storeys.2 The artist annotated the turrets of the building with abbreviated notes such as ‘cornice’ and ‘pil[aster]’.

This pencil sketch formed the basis of a gouache, pen and ink, and watercolour drawing on blue paper (Tate D20263; Turner Bequest CCXXII D) and there is a further colour drawing in the same media (Tate D24590; Turner Bequest CCLIX 25). For other views of Louvain in this sketchbook see Tate D28049–D28050, D28054, D28059–D28064; Turner Bequest CCLXXXVII 4a–5, 7, 9a–12.