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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Burg Nollig above Lorch, Looking down the River Rhine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Burg Nollig above Lorch, Looking down the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 60 Verso:
Burg Nollig above Lorch, Looking down the River Rhine 1840
D30574
Turner Bequest CCCIII 59a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 it shows the ruins of Burg Nollig high on the skyline above Lorch, with the spire of St Martin’s Church, looking north-west down the River Rhine.
Powell has noted that Turner neared the end of this tour following ‘the familiar route of the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne. He almost certainly travelled by steamer, ... sketching most of the well-known sights perfunctorily as he passed.’2 Given that this sketchbook was used in reverse of its subsequent foliation, she has specified the overall range of this phase as ‘TB CCCIII 68v–20v; 11r’,3 indicating folios 12 recto and 21 verso–69 verso (D30479, D30497–D30592; Turner Bequest CCCIII 20a–68a); see this book’s Introduction for the full itinerary of this part of the journey.
For other Burg Nollig views, see the 1817 Waterloo and Rhine sketchbook (Tate D12821, D12837; Turner Bequest CLX 62, 70), the 1833 Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine sketchbook (D29729, D29731; CCXCVI 68a, 69a), and the 1839 Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence sketchbook (D28474; CCXC 62a). Lorch also appears in the Waterloo and Rhine and Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine sketches.
There is an early 1840s watercolour, Burg Sooneck on the Rhine, which has a pencil study of Burg Nollig on the verso (private collection).4

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.
4
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.461 no.1344, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Burg Nollig above Lorch, Looking down the River Rhine 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-burg-nollig-above-lorch-looking-down-the-river-rhine-r1196331, accessed 01 September 2025.