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 ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Godesburg and Bonn, on the River Rhine 1840

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Godesburg and Bonn, on the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Verso:
The Godesburg and Bonn, on the River Rhine 1840
D30499
Turner Bequest CCCIII 21a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 it shows the tower of the ruined Godesburg castle, since restored and surrounded by Bad Godesberg, above the west bank of the Rhine, looking north-west down the river towards Bonn.
Powell has noted that Turner neared the end of this tour following ‘the familiar route of the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne. He almost certainly travelled by steamer, ... sketching most of the well-known sights perfunctorily as he passed.’2 Given that this sketchbook was used in reverse of its subsequent foliation, she has specified the overall range of this phase as ‘TB CCCIII 68v–20v; 11r’,3 indicating folios 12 recto and 21 verso–69 verso (D30479, D30497–D30592; Turner Bequest CCCIII 20a–68a); see this book’s Introduction for the full itinerary of this part of the journey.
For other Godesburg views, see the 1817 Itinerary Rhine Tour and Waterloo and Rhine sketchbooks (respectively Tate D12568, D12680; Turner Bequest CLIX 28a, 92; D12754–D12755, D12758–D12764, D12766–D12767, D12864, D12867; CLX 28a, 29, 30a–33a, 34a, 35, 83a, 85), the 1839 Cochem to Coblenz – Home sketchbook (D28618, D28625; CCXCI 42, 45a), and the 1844 Ostend, Rhine and Berne sketchbook (D33046; CCCXXVII 5a). There are also undated pencil studies on a single sheet (D34367; CCCXLIV 24) and among those on two related, folded sheets (D34369–D34371, D34373–D34376; CCCXLIV 26–28, 30–33; and D34377, D34379–D34380; CCCXLIV 34, 36, 37). The castle is in the distance in the 1817 watercolour of The Hochkreuz and Godesburg (Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn).4
There are scattered drawings of Bonn itself from the river. See the Itinerary Rhine Tour and Waterloo and Rhine books (D12667, D12750, D12864, D12868–D12870; CLIX 85a, CLX 26a, 83a, 85a, 86, 86a), the 1824 Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (D19841–D19842; CCXVI 145a, 146), the 1833 Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine book (D29663; CCXCVI 34), and Cochem to Coblenz – Home (D28624; CCXCI 45).
See also a distant view of the Godesburg (Tate D33905; Turner Bequest CCCXLI 200) among the Rhine studies on sheets of grey paper likely drawn as Turner passed upriver on the outward leg of the present tour. There is a technically related view of Bonn’s market place (D33899; CCCXLI 194), and studies on D33900 (CCCXLI 195) possibly show the Rhine waterfront there.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.
4
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.377 no.668, as ‘Godesberg’, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Godesburg and Bonn, on the River Rhine 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-godesburg-and-bonn-on-the-river-rhine-r1196257, accessed 05 May 2025.