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 ... > Trieste, Graz and Danube Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Leopoldsberg above the River Danube with Klosterneuburg in the Distance and a Boat in the Foreground; Klosterneuburg; Boats on the Danube 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Leopoldsberg above the River Danube with Klosterneuburg in the Distance and a Boat in the Foreground; Klosterneuburg; Boats on the Danube’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Recto:
The Leopoldsberg above the River Danube with Klosterneuburg in the Distance and a Boat in the Foreground; Klosterneuburg; Boats on the Danube 1840
D30014
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 7
Pencil on cream wove paper, 198 x 127 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. Wha’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Cloister Neuburg’, ‘6 [...]’ and ‘Neiburg’ towards top right, and ‘Danube’ and ‘[?Horses]’ bottom centre, upside down
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘7’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 7’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page vertical, there are five drawings here, the one at the bottom inverted relative to the rest. Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Château on the “Danube.” – “Neuberg.”’): ‘Klosterneuberg’.1
On the left of the top view, the Leopoldsberg hill north of Vienna (see under folio 40 recto; D30076) frames the view north-west up the Danube, with the imposing Klosterneuburg monastery in the riverside town of the same name beyond. The Leopoldsberg is also seen on
folios 11 verso and 25 recto (D30023, D30049); Turner also made numerous drawings in the 1833 Salzburg and Danube sketchbook (Tate D30286, D30289; Turner Bequest CCC 80, 81a), and the Vienna up to Venice book of the same year (D31430, D31432, D31436, D31438–D31440, D31442–D31444, D31446–D31447, D31449; CCCXI 8, 9, 11, 12, 12a, 13, 14–15, 16, 16a, 17a).
The next three studies show Klosterneuburg, with broad Baroque domes at its south-east end and the twin towers of its church at its north-west corner (now with elaborate upper stages and spires). Turner recorded three successive aspects as he travelled upriver, respectively from the south-south-east, the south-east, and the east. See also the 1833 Salzburg and Danube sketchbook (Tate D30286, D30289, D30291, D30292; Turner Bequest CCC 80, 81a, 82a, 83)
Although Turner’s 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.
The other way up, in the narrow strip remaining at the bottom, there are studies of boats, perhaps with the wheel of a watermill to their left.
1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p.967.
Technical notes:
For a discussion of the spurious Whatman watermarks seen here and elsewhere in the sketchbook, see the overall technical notes in its Introduction.1

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See also Bower 1999, pp.74–6.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Leopoldsberg above the River Danube with Klosterneuburg in the Distance and a Boat in the Foreground; Klosterneuburg; Boats on the Danube 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-leopoldsberg-above-the-river-danube-with-klosterneuburg-r1196864, accessed 26 April 2024.