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 Cochem c.1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Cochem’ c.1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Distant View of Cochem c.1839
D24723
Turner Bequest CCLIX 158
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 141 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX–158’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this evocative drawing Turner shows the German town of Cochem at a distance. This gouache and one other (Tate D20238; Turner Bequest CCXXI E) record two successive visions of Cochem ‘seen by travellers leaving the town for Coblenz’.1 Where CCXXI E offers a more comprehensive view of the topography, here Turner’s interest is in recreating the fleeting effects of light and climatic atmosphere. It is, in this sense, a more impressionistic drawing. Turner captures to brilliant effect the fall of light on the surface of the river, the diffusion of light in cloud, and the shimmering glow of light radiating from the sun.
1
Powell 1995, p.136 no.56.
Technical notes:
There has been some fading and discolouration of the pigment and support due to exposure to sunlight following the picture’s exhibition.
Verso:
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCLIX 158’ at bottom right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Distant View of Cochem 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-cochem-r1151000, accessed 23 April 2024.