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 ... > Venice; Passau to Würzburg Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Coburg, with Veste Coburg in the Distance; the Terrace of Schloss Rosenau 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Coburg, with Veste Coburg in the Distance; the Terrace of Schloss Rosenau’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Verso:
Coburg, with Veste Coburg in the Distance; the Terrace of Schloss Rosenau 1840
D31321
Turner Bequest CCCX 23a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 126 x 198 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally both ways, there are three sketches of two distinct subjects here. As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 along the gutter and inverted at the top left are two similar views east across Coburg and the surrounding countryside, towards the Veste Coburg fortress on its mound north-east of the town. Schloss Ernsthöhe (later known as Schloss Hohenfels; see under the recto, D31320) may be indicated in the left foreground of both. Later developments make the exact viewpoints uncertain; for the numerous Coburg views in this sketchbook, see under folio 1 verso (D31278).2
Above the larger Coburg view is a study of wooded slopes, with the retaining wall of the garden terrace at Schloss Rosenau,3 about four miles to the north-east, featuring its array of urns and the small tower at its north-western end. Compare the top right of the full-page view of the castle and its setting from the north on folio 22 recto (D31318), under which other sketches in this book and related works are discussed.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.243.
2
See also ibid., pp.72, 82 notes 63 and 64.
3
Not noted ibid., p.243.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Coburg, with Veste Coburg in the Distance; the Terrace of Schloss Rosenau 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-coburg-with-veste-coburg-in-the-distance-the-terrace-of-r1196109, accessed 26 April 2024.