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 Oblatterwall Bastion 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, with the Oblatterwall Bastion’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, with the Oblatterwall Bastion 1833
D32546
Turner Bequest CCCXXII 4
Pencil on white laid paper, 105 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: hindquarters and tail of unicorn
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘4’ bottom left, descending vertically (smudged and faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCCXXII – 4’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Oblatterwall bastion is shown overlooking the moat at the north-eastern corner of Augsburg’s Jakobervorstadt district, on the eastern side of the city. The scene appears in an 1829 watercolour, inscribed Der Jacober-Wall, by Heinrich Klonke (Augsburg Museums),1 showing the same low buildings on the mound. The site is now wooded, but the low waterside walls can be seen from Bert-Brecht-Strasse and Oblatterwallstrasse on the opposite bank.
This is one of a sequence between folios 2 recto and 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 (D32543; CCCXXII 2a) for other views in and around the city from this tour.
1
Reproduced under ‘Bildergalerie’ link at ‘Augsburgs Wehr und Zier – Die Stadtmauer’, Kunstsammlungen & Museen Augsburg, accessed 29 August 2019, http://kunstsammlungen-museen.augsburg.de/augsburgs-wehr-und-zier-die-stadtmauer,1865.
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 Oblatterwall Bastion 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-oblatterwall-bastion-r1204012, accessed 22 July 2024.