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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Venice; Passau to Würzburg Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Canal in Venice; a Spire among Trees, Probably near Coburg; the Ketschentor, Coburg 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Canal in Venice; a Spire among Trees, Probably near Coburg; the Ketschentor, Coburg’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
A Canal in Venice; a Spire among Trees, Probably near Coburg; the Ketschentor, Coburg 1840
D31279
Turner Bequest CCCX 2
Pencil on cream wove paper, 198 x 126 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Ent to Cobg’ towards top left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘2’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCX – 2’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner first used this page horizontally for an outline view of buildings receding towards the right along a Venice canal. The corner of the façade in the right foreground is relatively detailed, but identification is hampered by that half’s being drawn over in more vigorous style with two smaller views. As noted in the sketchbook’s Introduction, the Venice views on its early pages are intermingled with German sketches from Turner’s return journey.
The upper of the subsequent studies here shows a spire or monument among trees, and the lower, annotated ‘Ent to Cobg’, centres on the domed Ketschentor gate-tower1 on the north side of Coburg’s town centre, apparently from its northern approach along Steinweg rather than from the Spitalgasse side. Turner stayed at the nearby Weisser Schwan hotel on Spitalgasse itself; see the entry for folio 1 verso opposite (D31278).
1
See Powell 1995, p.242.
Technical notes:
The leaf was detached at some point and has been secured at the gutter with Japanese-type conservation paper.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Canal in Venice; a Spire among Trees, Probably near Coburg; the Ketschentor, Coburg 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-canal-in-venice-a-spire-among-trees-probably-near-coburg-r1196069, accessed 21 November 2024.