Joseph Mallord William Turner

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