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 Vogeltor in the Distance 1833

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, ?with the Vogeltor in the Distance’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Recto:
The Eastern Walls of Augsburg, ?with the Vogeltor in the Distance 1833
D32552
Turner Bequest CCCXXII 7
Pencil on white laid paper, 105 x 170 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘7’ top right, ascending vertically (smudged and faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCCXXII – 7’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is the last of a sequence beginning on folio 2 recto (D32544–D32552; CCCXXII 3–7) comprising a clockwise survey of Augsburg’s eastern Jakobervorstadt district’s walls, with their picturesque towers and gatehouses. In this case the precise subject remains to be identified, as various towers have been demolished or altered, and stretches of the walls between do not survive.
The tower in the central distance may be the Vogeltor, at the south-western corner of the Jakobervorstadt (see folio 5 verso opposite; D32551; Turner Bequest CCCXXII 6a), seen from the south along the moated Schwibbogenmauer perimeter of the Obere Stadt district, east of the church of SS. Ulrich and Afra (see the verso; D32553). As he drew, Turner appears to have adjusted the height of the tower, which then had a shallower roof than today’s; there have been many other changes to the area.1 For other views in and around the city from this tour, see under the view of Augsburg’s cathedral on folio 1 verso (D32543; CCCXXII 2a).
1
See ‘Vogeltor’, Augsburgwiki, accessed 16 September 2019, https://www.augsburgwiki.de/index.php/AugsburgWiki/Vogeltor.
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 Vogeltor in the Distance 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-vogeltor-in-the-r1204018, accessed 22 July 2024.