Joseph Mallord William Turner

Ehrenbreitstein

1841

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Medium: Watercolour and pen and ink on paper
Dimensions: Support: 237 x 300 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D36206
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 346

Display caption

Unlike the gouache studies in this room, nos.128-134 were executed in the course of one of Turner's tours when he must have stayed in a hotel on the Rhine front at Coblenz looking out at Ehrenbreitstein. Under the setting sun the fortress and river assumed an ever-changing succession of colours which he recorded in swift watercolour washes and bold flourishes of pen and ink, folding and tearing his paper hastily as he went along. In no.128 his viewpoint is downstream of the bridge of boats, but the latter is visible in all the other scenes, sometimes with a few boats moved aside to allow the passage of a raft or steamer.

Gallery label, August 2004

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