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 A Church Spire in a Valley; Studies of Towers; the Towers of a Town with Hills Beyond 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Church Spire in a Valley; Studies of Towers; the Towers of a Town with Hills Beyond’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Verso:
A Church Spire in a Valley; Studies of Towers; the Towers of a Town with Hills Beyond 1833
D32559
Turner Bequest CCCXXII 10a
Pencil on white laid paper, 170 x 105 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are three main sketches here, running down the page. At the top is a hilly scene with a church spire and possibly a castle on the skyline to the right. Compare the spire near a castle on the recto (D32558). Across the middle, an array of medieval towers is shown, apparently around a walled town or city, perhaps with a bridge. There are isolated profiles of several towers above. The other way up at the bottom, similar structures are shown against a hilly background.
This sketchbook covers Turner’s homeward route from Augsburg north-westwards to Rotterdam (see under folios 1 verso and 14 recto respectively; D32543, D32568; CCCXXII 2a, 15). As set out in the Introduction, although his general itinerary is clear from many identified subjects as he travelled down the River Rhine, they were are not drawn in a single sequence, making the less distinctive landscapes, towns and river scenes between them difficult to place.

Matthew Imms
November 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Church Spire in a Valley; Studies of Towers; the Towers of a Town with Hills Beyond 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-a-church-spire-in-a-valley-studies-of-towers-the-towers-of-a-r1204025, accessed 22 July 2024.