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 ... > The Route to Venice: The Rivers Mosel ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the South 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the South’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the South 1840
D36168
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 310
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 241 x 300 mm
Watermark ‘J Whatman | 1816’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXIV – 310’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Although its subject was unidentified when exhibited in early National Gallery displays and not recognised by John Ruskin,1 by 1902 this view had been correctly identified as showing ‘Landeck (Tyrol)’.2 Turner made four partly finished watercolours of the Austrian town, among the Tyrol Alps at the confluence of the Rivers Sanna and Inn (Tate D36079, D36085, D36168, D36173; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 233, 239, 310, 315). They are datable to 1840 by association with swift pencil sketches in the contemporary Rotterdam to Venice sketchbook (Tate D32294–D32295, D32322; Turner Bequest CCCXX 15a, 17, 31a). Landeck and its impressively situated castle lie about half way between Bregenz and Bolzano (Bozen), both of which are subjects elsewhere in this subsection, on the meandering south-eastern outward route towards Venice.
All four watercolours are loosely tinted over detailed pencil work, indicating that they were at least begun on the spot, independently of the small Rotterdam to Venice sketches. Here and in D36085, the view is downstream to the north, with the town out of sight in the valley beyond. In the other two, the view is over the town towards the castle, up the Inn to the south from near the confluence.
Until recent years, only this one had been recognised as Landeck; the subjects of the four sheets were first linked by Ian Warrell in 2002,3 when D36085 was displayed at Tate Britain.
1
See Cook and Wedderburn 1904, p.295 no.210.
2
Ibid., footnote 1, and p.636 no.585 (a); see also E.T. Cook ed., Ruskin on Pictures: A Collection of Criticisms by John Ruskin not heretofore Re-printed and now Re-edited and Re-arranged: Vol.I: Turner at the National Gallery and in Mr. Ruskin’s Collection, London 1902, p.239.
3
As noted in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCLXIV – 310’ below centre; inscribed in pencil ‘585a’ bottom centre.
There are three slight pencil dashes towards the bottom right, possibly tests or doodles, and test strokes or offsets of ochre colour at the centre right.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the South 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-schloss-landeck-above-the-river-inn-from-the-south-r1196438, accessed 20 May 2025.