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

Drawn with the page turned horizontally, the main view is to the north-west down the River Rhine, with the island Pfalz castle (Burg Pfalzgrafenstein) on the left, off the Dicker Turm at the near end of Kaub on the right, with the profile of Burg Gutenfels on the hillside beyond. As noted under folio 55 recto (D32647; CCCXXII 56), where drawings from other tours are also listed, this is one of four made around the town on adjacent pages. Turner had also recorded Kaub and the two castles on the outward leg of the present tour, in the Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine book (Tate D29721–D29725; Turner Bequest CCXCVI 64a–66a); compare three of the sketches on D29725 in particular. An 1817 watercolour of The Pfalz on the Rhine (currently untraced)1 shows a similar prospect.

As set out in its Introduction, this sketchbook covers Turner’s homeward route from Augsburg north-westwards to Rotterdam (see under folios 1 verso and 14 recto respectively; D32543, D32568; CCCXXII 2a, 15). Travelling back down the familiar river, he worked in somewhat randomly from both ends, interspersing identifiable subjects with less distinctive renderings of towns, castles and the landscape.

To the left, at right-angles and inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, is a view from near a small bridge between buildings receding towards a distant windmill, presumably in Rotterdam itself, by association with a wider view including the city’s St Lawrence’s Church (the Sint-Laurenskerk) directly opposite, on folio 57 recto (D32651; CCCXXII 58). Although the layout of the city’s central streets and harbours has been broadly preserved, very few buildings (notably St Lawrence’s) survived destruction in May 1940, and identification is based largely on earlier visual documentation; see under D32568 for other views in and around Rotterdam in this book and elsewhere.