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 ... > Rotterdam and Rhine sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, with the Oblattertor 1833

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, with the Oblattertor’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 2 Recto:
The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, with the Oblattertor 1833
D32544
Turner Bequest CCCXXII 3
Pencil on white laid paper, 105 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: base of unicorn motif
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘E[?b...gg...]’ bottom centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘3’ bottom left, descending vertically (smudged and faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCCXXII – 3’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The walls of Augsburg are shown around the lost Oblattertor, overlooking the moat at the north-western corner of the Jakobervorstadt district, on the eastern side of the city. The view is apparently westwards, but little survives of the immediate vicinity as the gateway was demolished in 1867, along with many other sections of the walls; the setting was around the junction of today’s Kanalstrasse and Bert-Brecht-Strasse.1 The subject is recorded in an 1820 colour print of Das Oblaterthor (sic) by J.N. Hofbauer, showing the same wooden bridge as at the centre here, together with the lower arch to the left accommodating a channel crossing the main waterway. Turner’s inscription along the road in the foreground, likely indicating a place name, is difficult to make out.
This is the first of a sequence up to folio 6 recto (D32544–D32552; CCCXXII 3–7) comprising a clockwise survey of the Jakobervorstadt’s walls, with their picturesque towers and gatehouses; see under the view of Augsburg’s cathedral on folio 1 verso opposite (D32543; CCCXXII 2a) for other views in and around the city from this tour.
1
See ‘Oblattertor’, Augsburgwiki, accessed 29 August 2019, https://www.augsburgwiki.de/index.php/AugsburgWiki/Oblattertor.
Technical notes:
The pale brown staining at the centre of the outer edge is owing to the leaf’s proximity to the leather pencil loop anchored under the front paste-down (D32541; CCCXXII 1).

Matthew Imms
November 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, with the Oblattertor 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-eastern-walls-of-augsburg-with-the-oblattertor-r1204010, accessed 22 July 2024.