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

With the page inverted relative to the foliation, there are two subjects here, recorded many miles apart along the River Danube, as identified by Cecilia Powell.1 At the top are two slight labelled views of the square tower of the fortified Sankt Michael church and the adjacent round tower on the north bank at Mosinghof, near Weissenkirchen. For other views, see under folio 14 verso (D30029).

Below, separated by a pencil line, is a prospect south-west to Burg Krempelstein (or Krämpelstein), on the steep bank between bends of the Danube opposite Erlau, not far east of Passau and roughly eighty miles west of Mosinghof. For other views, see under folio 17 recto (D30034), and compare a contemporary colour study over pencil on grey paper (Tate D28971; Turner Bequest CCXCII 24).

Powell has noted that as the Danube flows to Linz from Passau, it ‘pursues its course by means of several spectacular bends’, giving Turner the chance to study the ruined castles as he sailed up this stretch ‘looking quickly now upstream, now downstream’,2 as shown in various sketches interspersed with other subjects between folios 17 recto and 26 verso (D30034–D30052).3 Although his route upriver was straightforward, his somewhat haphazard use of this book to record it was not. For the geographical sequence of identified views between Vienna and Passau (see under folios 40 recto and 31 recto; D30076, D30058), see this sketchbook’s Introduction.