Joseph Mallord William Turner

This pencil drawing is not mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Turner Bequest Inventory.1 The similar view worked up in watercolour on the recto, D28992 (Turner Bequest CCXCII 45), was at that time part of one of the long-running touring Loan Collections from the Bequest, and this side was likely inaccessible. Cecilia Powell has identified both subjects as Cochem, seen to the south from above the Enderttal valley.2

Inverted relative to the recto, the pencil work here is slightly more detailed than that defining the architecture on the other side, and shows that Turner’s viewpoint was at a similar range but further to the right (that is, towards the west) here, as the tower of St Martin’s Church in the middle distance and the small spire beyond are to the left of the castle mound, whereas on the recto they are below and to the right of it respectively. The Enderttor gatehouse, shown more prominently on the recto, is here below and just to the left of the church.

For numerous contemporary studies of Cochem see under D28950 (CCXCII 3); for the full range of Mosel subjects associated with the present tour, see the Introduction to this subsection.

Technical notes:

Cecilia Powell has noted this as one of the many sheets of grey 1829 Bally, Ellen and Steart paper used on Turner’s 1840 tour, neatly torn as eighths or sixteenths of the overall sheet, with dimensions of around 190 x 280 or 140 x 190 mm, and variously worked with pencil, watercolour and gouache; see the technical notes in the overall Introduction for others.1