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

This sheet and three others (D33832, D33853–D33854; Turner Bequest CCCXLI 147, 162, 163) show the outskirts of Augsburg in Bavaria, where Turner also used the contemporary Venice up to Trento and Rotterdam and Rhine sketchbooks (see respectively under Tate D31655 and D32543; Turner Bequest CCCXII 30, CCCXXII 2a). Although he had also passed through on the outward leg, it is perhaps most likely that the four separate views followed on from the mountain subjects near Innsbruck on similar grey paper included in the present grouping, as discussed in its Introduction. As set out there, the neatly torn edges of the Augsburg sketches match up to form a grid.

Nothing of the present prospect survives today. The view is east along the bridge over the moat to the Göggingertor gateway and tower along the west side of Augsburg’s old city walls, just to the west of the Moritzkirche, which Turner drew in the Venice up to Trento book (see Tate D31696, D31722; Turner Bequest CCCXII 50a, 64). The tower was demolished in 1862 during extensive changes, and the levelled site is now Königsplatz. Fortuitously, Turner’s view is exactly replicated in a detailed commemorative stone relief positioned in nearby Bürgermeister-Fischer-Strasse, which leads to the church. The similar Rotes Tor still stands at the south-eastern corner of the old defences.

This is the most developed of the four Augsburg views, with features picked out in white chalk. The tower is apparently shown in all of them from different directions, and is depicted in detail in D33853.

Technical notes:

There is scattered brown staining towards the left.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions; inscribed in pencil ‘233 | O’ top left, upside down, and ‘129’ at centre.