Joseph Mallord William Turner

Moselle View with Distant Castle; The Ferry and Ferry-Tower at Schweich

1839

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
First Mossel and Oxford Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 140 × 235 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D28335
Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 23

Catalogue entry

Here Turner has recorded a view of the Moselle valley, including a barge laden with cargo and crew. The tower in the background has led Cecilia Powell to identify the location as Schweich and the structure as the town’s medieval Fährturm or Ferry Tower which acted as a harbour for the local ferry service running from Trier to Koblenz.1 See also Tate D28346; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 28 a.
Parallel to the short edge of the sketchbook is a view of a town on the banks of the Moselle. Though Turner has inscribed ‘Berncastle’ above the drawing Powell writes that Bernkastel-Kues is not its subject.2

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2013

1
Cecilia Powell, Turner’s Rivers of Europe: The Rhine, Meuse and Mosel, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1991, Appendix p.219
2
Ibid.

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