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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Cochem to Coblenz - Home Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Forts at Coblenz; Church 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Forts at Coblenz; Church’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
Forts at Coblenz; Church 1839
D28604
Turner Bequest CCXCI 35
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 100 x 156 mm
Watermarked ‘& c[omp]’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Red ?B’ top centre; ‘St ?Sebastian’ top right
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘35’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXCI–35’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Running parallel to the gutter of the sketchbook, Turner has made two swift linear jottings of forts at Koblenz. Orientated inversely to these is a sketch of a church which is annotated with the inscriptions ‘Red ?B’ and what appears to read ‘St Sebastian’. There is a possibility, given the basic similarities in architecture, that Turner might here be representing the Parish Church of St Michael and St Sebastian at Bernkastel-Kues, a village on the Moselle located near Trier.

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Forts at Coblenz; Church 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-forts-at-coblenz-church-r1150888, accessed 19 April 2024.