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

Made with the page turned horizontally, Finberg recognised that the larger view shows Schloss Rosenau,1 about four miles north-east of Coburg, looking north up the tree-lined River Itz. For the few views other studies of the castle in this sketchbook and related works, see under folio 22 recto (D31318). As Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll noted,2 the present study is in the opposite direction from those used directly for the oil painting Schloss Rosenau, Seat of H.R.H. Prince Albert of Coburg, near Coburg, Germany, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1841 (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool),3 where the river appears on the left.

At right-angles, with the page inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, is a smaller but more emphatic drawing of the view up Spitalgasse in Coburg, with the medieval Spitaltor gate-tower in the distance at the centre, as identified by Cecilia Powell, who has also noted the subject as encompassing Weisser Schwan hotel,4 where Turner was staying, although it is unclear which of the buildings on the left this was. To the right is an architectural detail, apparently showing the profile of the lantern, onion dome and upper stages of the tower. For the numerous Coburg views in this sketchbook, see under folio 1 verso (D31278),5 which includes one from the hotel itself.