Joseph Mallord William Turner

This is a detailed and carefully rendered study of the Festung, or fortress, of Ehrenbreitstein at Koblenz. Located on the east bank of the Rhine and built into a mountain of the same name, the citadel was constructed by the Prussians between 1817 and 1828.1 Turner shows the fortress here still in the process of being built. This formidable defence guarded the middle Rhine region against imminent French invasion, and, unsurprisingly given its vast and mighty proportions, Ehrenbreitstein was never attacked. In this drawing Turner provides the viewer with a sense of the sheer dominance and impenetrability of the building, constructed as it is into the natural tiers and platforms of the rock high above the water. Ehrenbreitstein made an impression on Turner and the Victorian travel writer Bartholomew Stritch alike, the latter writing that the citadel is ‘gigantic and almost “cloud capt”’ and renders Koblenz ‘an impregnable bulwark against any attempts of the French upon that part of the Prussian dominions’.2

Ehrenbreitstein was sketched, studied and painted by Turner over one hundred times. His earliest drawings are from 1817, and include: Tate D12802–D12806, D12809, D12894–D12908; Turner Bequest CLX 52a–54a, 56, CLXI 7–15 and other 1824 drawings of the citadel are: Tate D19785, D19818–D19821, D19827–D19828, D19830; Turner Bequest CCXVI 117a, 134–135a, 138a–139, 140. Later drawings from 1839 and colour studies can be found on: Tate D24804, D24809, D24833, D25307, D28302–D28303, D28351–D28356, D28444–D28447, D28529–D28536, D28603–D28609, D26613–D28614; Turner Bequest CCLIX 239, 244, 268, CCLXIII 185, CCLXXXIX 6a–7, CCXC 1–3a, 47a–49, 87a–91, CCXCI 34a–37a, 39a–40.