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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern ... > Rivers Meuse and Moselle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Front at Trarbach with the Round Tower, Boats and Flying Bridge; A Half-Timbered Butcher's Shop, Probably at Trarbach, with the Shopkeepers at Work, Hanging Carcases and Domestic Animals in the Foreground 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Front at Trarbach with the Round Tower, Boats and Flying Bridge; A Half-Timbered Butcher's Shop, Probably at Trarbach, with the Shopkeepers at Work, Hanging Carcases and Domestic Animals in the Foreground’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 112 Recto:
The River Front at Trarbach with the Round Tower, Boats and Flying Bridge; A Half-Timbered Butcher’s Shop, Probably at Trarbach, with the Shopkeepers at Work, Hanging Carcases and Domestic Animals in the Foreground 1824
D19770
Turner Bequest CCXVI 111
Pencil on white wove paper, 118 x 78 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Dogs and Cats’ bottom centre towards left
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘111’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVI–111’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These animated and swiftly wrought sketches show aspects of life and labour in the Moselle town of Trarbach. The uppermost sketches, most likely taken by Turner as he stood on a quay, show the riverfront, with the watchtower at left and boats laden with cargo being navigated to the dock at centre.
Turner also records two locals at work in their half-timbered butcher’s shop (see Tate D19769; Turner Bequest CCXVI 110a). One prepares the carcases at left, perhaps plucking feathers, separating or trimming cuts, and the other, at right, hangs the meat on hooks suspended on poles. All the while a few dogs and cats linger expectantly under the butcher’s table, waiting for any tasty scraps that might fall.
For drawings of Trarbach dated 1824 see: Tate D19764–D19768, D20186, D20191; Turner Bequest CCXVI 108a–110, CCXIX 25, 30. For pencil and colour drawings taken in 1839 see: Tate D20234, D20240, D20259, D20275, D28308, D28310, D28190–D28395, D28400–D28401; Turner Bequest CCXXI A, G, Z, CCXXII P, CCLXXXIX 9a, 10a, CCXC 20a–23, 25a–26.

Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2014

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘The River Front at Trarbach with the Round Tower, Boats and Flying Bridge; A Half-Timbered Butcher’s Shop, Probably at Trarbach, with the Shopkeepers at Work, Hanging Carcases and Domestic Animals in the Foreground 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2014, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-river-front-at-trarbach-with-the-round-tower-boats-and-r1174561, accessed 20 September 2024.