Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Fortress and Town of Ehrenbreitstein from Coblenz

1839

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
First Mossel and Oxford Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 140 × 235 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D28303
Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 7

Catalogue entry

This view of the town and fortress of Ehrenbreitstein is the single largest and most developed of any sketch taken by Turner during his 1839 tour of the Meuse-Moselle region. The prospect is expansive and highly detailed, and continues onto the folio opposite (Tate D28302; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 6a) to offer the viewer a comprehensive and almost itemised impression of Ehrenbreitstein’s topography and architecture. This rewardingly descriptive drawing was, it seems, produced in and for itself. It did not form the basis of a finished gouache drawing, as other of the 1839 Meuse-Moselle pencil sketches had done.

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2013

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