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 Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, Innsbruck, from beside the Stadtturm, with the West Towers of the Cathedral beyond the Goldenes Dachl 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, Innsbruck, from beside the Stadtturm, with the West Towers of the Cathedral beyond the Goldenes Dachl’ 1833
Folio 52 Recto:
Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, Innsbruck, from beside the Stadtturm, with the West Towers of the Cathedral beyond the Goldenes Dachl 1833
D31699
Turner Bequest CCCXII 52
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
Partial watermark: crescent moon with face in profile
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in black ink ‘52’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXII – 52’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘The Hezog [sic] Friedrich-Strasse, Innsbruck’): ‘“Goldner Dachel” [sic] JPH’.1 The initials are those of the etcher and collector John Postle Heseltine (1843–1929), whose occasional suggestions Finberg acknowledged in this way.
As Finberg had recognised, the view is north along Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, with the base of the medieval Stadtturm towards the right foreground. Built around 1500 to mark Emperor Maximilian I’s wedding, the ornate Goldenes Dachl is the carefully drawn projecting feature with an upper balcony and a steep gilded copper roof (hence its name) to the left of centre, preserved as part of a later façade.2 The twin domed cathedral towers beyond are now obscured from this angle. The Karwendel Alps loom over the roofline, and are seen again from further back, beyond the full height of the Stadtturm, on folio 17 recto (D31629), under which Innsbruck and Turner’s other sketches are discussed.

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
See ‘Golden Roof’, tyrol.tl, accessed 29 April 2019, https://www.tyrol.tl/en/highlights/sights/golden-roof/.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Herzog-Friedrich-Strasse, Innsbruck, from beside the Stadtturm, with the West Towers of the Cathedral beyond the Goldenes Dachl 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/herzog-friedrich-strasse-innsbruck-from-beside-the-stadtturm-with-the-west-towers-of-the-r1203897, accessed 20 April 2025.