This pencil study shows the prospect south-west over Passau from the open ground above the spire of St Bartholomäus’s Church on the Ilzstadt. The River Ilz flows to the left beyond the church, passing the towers of the Niederhaus overlooking its confluence with the much larger Danube. Above the spire towards the top right is the Oberhaus, looking over the centre of Passau. The tip of the Altstadt peninsula is shown beyond the Niederhaus, with slight indications of the twin towers of St Michael’s Church and, at the centre, the shaded dome of the cathedral. The twin spires of the Mariahilf church are cursorily indicated towards the top left, on the slopes south of the River Inn, itself absorbed by the Danube at the confluence off the near end of the Altstadt. The rivers are loosely picked out in white chalk.
There is a pencil sketch from nearby in the contemporary
Venice; Passau to Würzburg sketchbook (Tate
D31384; Turner Bequest CCCX 55); see under
D31371 (CCCX 48a) in that book for its numerous other sketches, and those in two other sketchbooks, including colour studies. All this activity in mid-September 1840 led to one finished watercolour on conventional white paper,
Passau, Germany, at the Confluence of the Rivers Inn and Danube (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin),
1 from an effectively imaginary elevated viewpoint over the Danube south of the one used here.
Tate
D28993 and
D29006 (Turner Bequest CCXCII 46, 57) are variations on similar sheets of grey paper, with pencil outlines worked up in watercolour and gouache.
2 Compare also the more elaborate treatment in a watercolour study of much the same view on the white paper of the
Passau and Burg Hals sketchbook (Tate
D33668; Turner Bequest CCCXL 3).
