Joseph Mallord William Turner

Oberwesel and the Schönburg, Looking Upstream towards Burg Gutenfels in the Distance

1839

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In Tate Britain

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 100 × 163 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D28459
Turner Bequest CCXC 55

Catalogue entry

Here Turner has recorded a prospect of Oberwesel, a town on the Rhine’s left bank situated between Sankt Goar and Bacharach. The view encompasses the Pfarrkirche Liebfrauen, the tower of Saint Martin’s Parish Church, Saint Werner’s Chapel with its onion-shaped dome, the Ochsenturm, and the numerous defensive towers connected to Oberwesel’s city walls. The Schönburg Castle, for centuries home to the dukes of that name, is atop the mount at the centre. The keep of the Burg Gutenfels (c.1220) can just be seen in the distance on the opposite bank.
This sketch and those on Tate D28460–D28465; Turner Bequest CCXC 55a–58 are the preliminary material for a highly finished watercolour and gouache drawing of 1840.1

Alice Rylance-Watson
July 2013

1
See Shanes, Joll, Warrell and others 2000, p.222 no.101 and Powell 1991, p.118 no.30, reproduced.

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