J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Augsburg’s medieval Vogeltor gateway (not ‘Bogel Thor’, as Turner noted it, presumably having misheard), is show to the west. It stands at the south-west corner of the projecting eastern Jakobervorstadt district where it meets the Obere Stadt area of the city centre, overlooking a T-junction of the city’s moat, of which only vestiges now remain at this point along sunken strips of wooded parkland. The complex scene Turner records is much altered, although Am Vogeltor still carries traffic through the tower’s dark archway, parallel with the wider Oberer Graben beyond. The tower now stands isolated and four-square without its bridge or the Vogelmauer walls in the foreground, replaced with modern houses; it was restored after the Second Word War with a steeper, plainer roof.1

The smaller tower with two windows, beyond to the left, still stands on the far side of the old moat near the cupola of St Ursula’s Church; unusually, Turner seems to have had second thoughts regarding the placing of the roof and its relative height. There appears to be a slight indication at the left-hand edge of the soaring tower of SS. Ulrich and Afra’s Church, with its onion dome, to the south-west. The church is the main subject on folios 6 verso and 7 recto (D32553–D32554; CCCXXII 7a, 8), and is also shown more clearly on the recto (D32550), where the Vogeltor and the neighbouring tower are shown in the middle distance.

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.

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).