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 The Burg at Cochem on the River Mosel from the South-East, beyond Sehl 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Burg at Cochem on the River Mosel from the South-East, beyond Sehl’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Burg at Cochem on the River Mosel from the South-East, beyond Sehl 1840
D29020
Turner Bequest CCXCII 69
Pencil, watercolour and gouache on grey wove paper, 140 x 190 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXCII 69’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Cecilia Powell was the first to publish Cochem as the subject here;1 the view is north-west down the River Mosel from the outer bank of the bend leading to the town from Sehl. High above towards the right is Cochem’s ruined Burg, since heavily restored and generally known as the Reichsburg, with the St Roch (Sankt Rochus) plague chapel picked out in white below it. On the distant skyline is the ruin of the Winneburg castle.2 The view is framed by Sehl’s Antoniuskirche, seen from where a broad road now runs alongside a car park between the church and the tree-lined riverbank, and the rugged Brauselay rocks opposite.
The view is one of a sequence of colour studies showing the approach to Cochem along the south bank from this direction. Tate D28987 and D28963 (Turner Bequest CCXCII 40, 16) are from further off, while D28950 (CCXCII 3) is a view from rather closer to the town, focusing on the elements shown in the centre here. For other contemporary studies of Cochem see under D28950; and for the full range of Mosel subjects associated with the present tour, see the Introduction to this subsection.
1
See Powell 1995, p.146.
2
See ibid.
Technical notes:
Although there is no specific record of prolonged early display, the sheet is somewhat browned in the middle, with the bare paper having a fresher colour at the borders which were presumably once protected by a mount. By the same token, the yellow washes generally appear faded compared with a stronger strip at the right-hand edge.
Cecilia Powell has noted this as one of the many sheets of grey 1829 Bally, Ellen and Steart paper used on Turner’s 1840 tour, neatly torn as eighths or sixteenths of the overall sheet, with dimensions of around 190 x 280 or 140 x 190 mm, and variously worked with pencil, watercolour and gouache; see the technical notes in the overall Introduction for others.1
1
See ibid., p.145.
Verso:
Laid down on modern off-white wove paper; inscribed in pencil ‘CCXCII – 69’ towards top right; inscribed in pencil ‘112 | b’ right of centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCXCII – 69’ towards bottom left.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Burg at Cochem on the River Mosel from the South-East, beyond Sehl 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-the-burg-at-cochem-on-the-river-mosel-from-the-south-east-r1196411, accessed 26 April 2024.