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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and French ... > Holland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Cunera Church, Rhenen, from the River Nederrijn; the Grebbeberg, upstream from Rhenen 1825

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Cunera Church, Rhenen, from the River Nederrijn; the Grebbeberg, upstream from Rhenen’ 1825
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 132 Recto:
The Cunera Church, Rhenen, from the River Nederrijn; the Grebbeberg, upstream from Rhenen 1825
D19100
Turner Bequest CCXIV 132
Pencil on white wove paper, 95 x 155 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘32’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXIV – 132’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the view is dominated by the 82 metre (270 foot) Gothic steeple of the medieval Cunera Church in Rhenen,1 a small city on the north bank of the River Nederrijn, a distributary of the Rhine about fifteen miles west of Arnhem. The former pilgrimage church still commands its largely low-lying surroundings, and is seen with nearby buildings from the river, with boats in the foreground. Turner ran out of space for the very top of the steeple at the outer edge of the page, and had to continue it to the left.
As foliated, the previous identified sketches show Utrecht (folios 128 verso–130 verso; D19093–D19097), roughly twenty miles to the north-west of Rhenen. With studies of boats and a carriage on folios 131 recto and verso respectively (D19098–D19099), it is unclear at what point Turner would have reached the Nederrijn. He could have gone by road via Amerongen2 and Elst, a possible site along the way being noted under folio 131 verso opposite (D19099), or up the Kromme Rijn to where it branches off at Wijk bij Duurstede, a few miles west of Rhenen.
Turner passed downstream in 1833, making studies including a similar elevation in the Rotterdam and Rhine sketchbook (Tate D32636; Turner Bequest CCCXXII 50). The small sketch at the top right of the present page likely shows the Grebbeberg, a prominent hill overlooking the river not far upstream to the right of the main view. From here he may have travelled upstream to the Rhine south-east of Arnhem and on into Germany before a brief stop at Kleve (see the verso; D19101), about thirty miles to the south-east of Rhenen, then continuing to Düsseldorf and Cologne.

Matthew Imms
September 2020

1
See ‘The Cunera Church’, ...wat de Heuvelrug met je doet!, accessed 12 May 2020, https://www.visitheuvelrug.com/locations/1544473125/the-cunera-church.
2
See John Murray, A Hand-book for Travellers on the Continent, London 1836, p.59.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Cunera Church, Rhenen, from the River Nederrijn; the Grebbeberg, upstream from Rhenen 1825 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2020, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-cunera-church-rhenen-from-the-river-nederrijn-the-r1202452, accessed 05 April 2026.