J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
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Joseph Mallord William Turner Castles: Burg Fürstenberg, Looking upstream from the West Bank of the River Rhine; Burg Fürstenberg and Rheindiebach from the Waterside; Sketches and a Composition Study of Burg Sooneck, Looking upstream from the West Bank 1817

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Castles: Burg Fürstenberg, Looking upstream from the West Bank of the River Rhine; Burg Fürstenberg and Rheindiebach from the Waterside; Sketches and a Composition Study of Burg Sooneck, Looking upstream from the West Bank’ 1817
Folio 66 Recto:
Castles: Burg Fürstenberg, Looking upstream from the West Bank of the River Rhine; Burg Fürstenberg and Rheindiebach from the Waterside; Sketches and a Composition Study of Burg Sooneck, Looking upstream from the West Bank 1817
D12825
Turner Bequest CLX 64
Pencil on white wove paper, 150 x 94 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Cows’ and ‘Rhine’ below centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘64’ top right, and ‘258’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLX – 64’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sketches on this page, dating from 25 August 1817, were made in strips. From the top, the first two show Burg Fürstenberg, seen looking up the Rhine from the west bank and then from the riverside village of Rheindiebach below the castle. The second sketch became the basis of the watercolour Burg Fürstenberg sold by Turner to Walter Fawkes later in 1817 (City Art Gallery, Manchester).1 Built as a toll castle by the archbishops of Cologne, Fürstenberg was sacked by the French in 1689 and still ruinous when Turner saw it in 1817. His sketch notes the cows on the riverbank that reappeared in the watercolour.
The two main sketches overlapping below show another castle, Burg Sooneck, seen looking upstream from the west bank; the same view is synthesised in a small composition study within a drawn outline at bottom left. It is not, however, the same view of Sooneck as Turner used for a watercolour sold to Fawkes (British Museum, London).2

David Blayney Brown
June 2025

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.374 no.641, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.377 no.671, reproduced.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Castles: Burg Fürstenberg, Looking upstream from the West Bank of the River Rhine; Burg Fürstenberg and Rheindiebach from the Waterside; Sketches and a Composition Study of Burg Sooneck, Looking upstream from the West Bank 1817’, catalogue entry, June 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, June 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/castles-burg-furstenberg-looking-upstream-from-the-west-bank-of-the-river-rhine-burg-r1212197, accessed 31 July 2026.