Catalogue entry
In the uppermost sketches Turner makes swift jottings of sailing boats plying the waters of the Moselle between Ürzig (see Tate
D19761; Turner Bequest CCXVI 106a) and Kröv. The rest of the page is taken up with sketches of the ruined abbey at Wolf, inscribed as ‘Wolvé’. The artist has also written what appears to be the word ‘Sloss’ next to ‘Wolvé’, perhaps a misspelling of ‘Schloss’, the German for castle.
Turner captures aspects of these imposing ruins, positioned high atop the Gockelsburg, in a succession of views on this sheet and on Tate
D19763; Turner Bequest CCXVI 107a. The sheer number of views may be accounted for by the author Bartholomew Stritch, who writes that Wolf is ‘not lost sight of for a long time’ and seems to ‘follow the traveller’s progress’ continually with each bend and meander.
1 Indeed, ‘the river lingers and loiters so much in this part of its course, that it seems as if loth to quit a scene of such exquisite and ever varying beauty’.
2The artist drew the abbey again in the larger
Moselle (or Rhine) sketchbook of 1824 (Tate
D20185; Turner Bequest CCXIX 24). It is also pictured in two colour drawings: Tate
D20236; Turner Bequest CCXXI C (c.1826) and Tate
D24717; Turner Bequest CCLIX 152 (c.1839). The latter of these colour drawings is associated with three preparatory pencil sketches: Tate
D28310–D28311,
D28403; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 10a–11, CCXC 27.
Alice Rylance-Watson
April 2014
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