Without further comment and for no obvious reason, Finberg’s 1909
Inventory tentatively suggested this as a view of ‘Visp, Rhone Valley (?). A convent in valley – “St. Joseph” – with distant mountains’;
1 Visp is in the Swiss Alps and is not a subject as yet otherwise identified among Turner’s works, nor mentioned elsewhere in the
Inventory. Oddly, nor is the supposed inscription given there in quotation marks now evident (unless it is now obscured on the laid-down verso), possibly indicating some confusion or conflation of subjects in Finberg’s listing.
Cecilia Powell first published the actual subject.
2 Looking down the River Mosel, the view is flanked by the low bank towards Sehl on the left, with the Brauselay rocks inside the right-hand bend opposite. In the distance to the north-west are the ruins of the Burg (since elaborately restored and known as the Reichsburg) south of Cochem, lightly indicated along the riverside below; the hilltop keep of the Winneburg is shown beyond as a pale visual echo of the Burg.
For numerous contemporary studies of Cochem, see under Tate
D28950 (Turner Bequest CCXCII 3), a nearer view from the same bank.
D28963 and
D29020 (CCXCII 16, 69) show intermediate stages of the approach,
3 and both feature the spire of Sehl’s Antoniuskirche. It is apparently marked by the pencil cross symbol towards the lower left here, with a study of its actual profile shown as if in the middle of the river at the opposite corner. As Powell has observed, ‘jotting down of details wherever it suited him is a constant feature of Turner’s sketching practice and examples can be found in virtually all of his sketchbooks.’
4For the full range of Mosel subjects associated with the present tour, see the Introduction to this subsection.
