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 Ghent: St Nicholas' Church, Belfry and St Bavo's Cathedral from the West 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ghent: St Nicholas' Church, Belfry and St Bavo's Cathedral from the West’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Verso:
Ghent: St Nicholas' Church, Belfry and St Bavo's Cathedral from the West 1833
D29616
Turner Bequest CCXCVI 10a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 113 x 185 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Pore | Pore dique’, ‘St Michael’ top right, descending
Inscribed in pencil by an unknown hand ‘Predil reerer paler’ top right, descending
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘80’ bottom left (inversely)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the sketchbook turned upside down, Turner records a scene at Ghent. St Nicholas’ Church is depicted at left, with the Belfry of Ghent and the tower of St Bavo’s Cathedral visible to its right. The inscriptions ‘Pore | Pore dique’ and ‘St Michael’ are in Turner’s hand, but ‘Predil reerer paler’ appears to have been written in another’s.

Alice Rylance-Watson
February 2017

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Ghent: St Nicholas' Church, Belfry and St Bavo's Cathedral from the West 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-ghent-st-nicholas-church-belfry-and-st-bavos-cathedral-from-r1202914, accessed 15 January 2025.