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 > Meuse-Moselle Gouache and Watercolour ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein c.1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein’ c.1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Distant View of Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein c.1839
D20261
Turner Bequest CCXXII B
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 139 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXXII B’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This vividly coloured drawing shows the city of Koblenz and Ehrenbreitstein citadel from a distance. Turner employs a palette of brilliant burnt orange, indigo, mauve and lemon yellow to evoke a sunset light. As Cecilia Powell writes, this ‘gouache does not correspond precisely’ to any one preparatory pencil study, ‘and is, above all, a generalised and impressionistic recollection’ of Turner’s experiences.1
For other of Turner’s 1839 gouaches of Ehrenbreitstein and Koblenz see Tate D24804, D24809, D24833; Turner Bequest CCLIX 239, 244, 268 and Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein from the Moselle at the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.2
1
Powell 1991, p.148 no.79.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.422 no.1034.
Verso:
Inscribed in pencil ‘92’ centre and ‘G’ top left.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Distant View of Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein c.1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-distant-view-of-coblenz-and-ehrenbreitstein-r1150967, accessed 18 May 2024.