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 ... > Brussels up to Mannheim - Rhine ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ostend; Ghent: The Maison des Francs Bateliers on the Quai aux Herbes and Another House 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ostend; Ghent: The Maison des Francs Bateliers on the Quai aux Herbes and Another House’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Verso:
Ostend; Ghent: The Maison des Francs Bateliers on the Quai aux Herbes and Another House 1833
D29596
Turner Bequest CCXCVI 1a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 185 x 113 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘1770’ left
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘89’ bottom left (inversely)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
A view of Ostend Harbour is depicted horizontally across the page and continues onto the opposite folio (Tate D29597; Turner Bequest CCXCVI 2). Turner docked at Ostend at the beginning of his 1833 tour.
The sketches orientated vertically show buildings at Ghent, principally the façade of the Maison des Francs Bateliers on the Graslei or Quai aux Herbes. The Maison, known in Flemish as the Gildenhuis der Vrije Schippers, is a sixteenth century Guild Hall which once belonged to the Watermen of Ghent. The Graslei is depicted in other sketchbooks such as the Waterloo and Rhine of 1817 (see Tate D12715; Turner Bequest CLX 8a) and the Holland of 1825 (see Tate D19250;
Turner Bequest CCXIV 207).

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2017

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Ostend; Ghent: The Maison des Francs Bateliers on the Quai aux Herbes and Another House 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2017, 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/joseph-mallord-william-turner-ostend-ghent-the-maison-des-francs-bateliers-on-the-quai-aux-r1202894, accessed 15 January 2025.