Joseph Mallord William Turner

This series of sketches shows Klotten, a village neighbouring Cochem, on the Moselle. The tall and narrowly tapering spire of St Maximin’s Church is seen in all three drawings, each view in turn dominated by the ruins of the Burg Coraidelstein. A castle has existed at the site since the Roman occupation, but the medieval fortress, of which we see a part in Turner’s sketch, dates back to 960 and was established by the Palatine Count Hermann I.1 The castle passed between imperial and noble families until 1830 when it was vacated and left to decay.2

For further views of Klotten in this sketchbook see Tate D19794, D19798; Turner Bequest CCXVI 122, 124. See also Tate D28298, D28309, D28344, D28550, D28551, D28553; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 4a, 10, 27a, CCXCI 7a, 8, 9. For gouache and watercolour drawings of Klotten see Tate D20237, D28967; Turner Bequest CCXXI D, CCXCII 78. The Burg Coraidelstein and Klotten both feature in the frontispiece design of Clarkson Stanfield’s Sketches on the Moselle, the Rhine, & the Meuse of 1839.3