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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Town; Rüdesheim and the Rheingau; Walled Town on the Lower Rhine 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Town; Rüdesheim and the Rheingau; Walled Town on the Lower Rhine’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Verso:
Town; Rüdesheim and the Rheingau; Walled Town on the Lower Rhine 1835
D30646
Turner Bequest CCCIV 8 a
Pencil on cream laid paper, 118 x 190 mm
Watermark ‘jh[&z]’
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Wesel’ bottom left; ‘not Wesil’ bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The central sketch is of Rüdesheim on the Rhine, and is orientated upside down relative to the other views. Rüdesheim’s parish church and the tower of Castle Boosenburg are visible.
Two other towns are depicted above and below Rüdesheim. The rear view may show Wesel on the Rhine, given the inscriptions ‘Wesel | not Wesil’. The view above Rüdesheim is unidentified, but the two towers depicted appear again on Tate D30647; Turner Bequest CCCIV 9.

Alice Rylance-Watson
November 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Town; Rüdesheim and the Rheingau; Walled Town on the Lower Rhine 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-town-rudesheim-and-the-rheingau-walled-town-on-the-lower-r1187027, accessed 17 May 2024.