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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Cochem to Coblenz - Home Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Moselkern and the Bridge over the River Eltz 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Moselkern and the Bridge over the River Eltz’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
Moselkern and the Bridge over the River Eltz 1839
D28561
Turner Bequest CCXCI 13
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 100 x 156 mm
Watermarked with French imperial eagle
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘13’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXCI–13’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner shows the village of Moselkern, which neighbours Müden. The entrance to the River Eltz, a tributary of the Mosel, is seen at centre, traversed by a wooden bridge. The village is described by Quin as: ‘exhibiting... exceedingly handsome houses, backed by beautiful landscapes, and many tokens of a prosperous trade’ despite it having ‘encountered a series of particularly severe misfortunes during the thirty years’ war, and still more after the peace of Westphalia’.1 The Romanesque west tower of St Valerius’s Church can be seen at right.

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2013

1
Michael Joseph Quin, Steam voyages on the Seine, the Moselle, & the Rhine, London 1843, p.54.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Moselkern and the Bridge over the River Eltz 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-moselkern-and-the-bridge-over-the-river-eltz-r1150845, accessed 26 April 2024.