Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the sketchbook turned upside down Turner has drawn two small yet carefully limned drawings of Beilstein and Burg Metternich running across the upper and middle registers. The first of these is inscribed with ‘Vines’, a note to remind the artist of the vegetation growing up the slopes of Moselle.

With the sketchbook orientated horizontally, Beilstein is depicted again at the right, the castle rising loftily atop a conical mount above the village. The final drawing is directly below and likely represents Trarbach. This diminutive yet picturesque composition has been squared off by Turner and annotated with his approximation of the village’s name, ‘Trabach’.