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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Rotterdam and Rhine sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Pfalz (Burg Pfalzgrafenstein) on the River Rhine, with the Dicker Turm in Kaub 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Pfalz (Burg Pfalzgrafenstein) on the River Rhine, with the Dicker Turm in Kaub’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 55 Recto:
The Pfalz (Burg Pfalzgrafenstein) on the River Rhine, with the Dicker Turm in Kaub 1833
D32647
Turner Bequest CCCXXII 56
Pencil on white laid paper, 105 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: base of unicorn motif
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘56’ bottom left, descending vertically (smudged and faint)
Stamped in black ‘CCCXXII – 56’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the view is south-east up the Rhine to the dome and turrets of the island Pfalz castle (Burg Pfalzgrafenstein), as Finberg recognised.1 On the riverbank to the left is the round Dicker Turm at the southern end of Kaub. Other aspects of the town and Burg Gutenfels above it are shown on the verso and folio 56 recto (D32648–D32649; CCCXXII 56a, 57), and the Pfalz, Kaub and Burg Gutenfels are seen from upstream on folio 56 verso (D32650; CCCXXII 57a).

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. Turner had drawn Kaub, Burg Gutenfels and the Pfalz on the outward leg of the present tour, in the Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine sketchbook (Tate D29721–D29725; Turner Bequest CCXCVI 64a–66a); compare one of the sketches on D29723 in particular.
For other views of the town and the two castles, see the 1817 Itinerary Rhine Tour and Waterloo and Rhine and Rhine sketchbooks (respectively Tate D12650–D12651; Turner Bequest CLIX 77, 77a; D12821, D12843–D12845; CLX 62, 73, 73a, 74; D12938–D12939; CLXI 30a, 31), the 1835 Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine book (D30663, D30804; CCCIV 17, 91a), the 1839 Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence book (D28459, D28498–D28499; CCXC 55, 74a, 75), and 1840s Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend (D30563–D30564, D30566–D30567; Turner Bequest CCCIII 53a, 54, 55, 55a). There is a finished watercolour of about 1824, Kaub and the Castle of Gutenfels (private collection),2 for which there are variant colour studies (Tate D25438, D25511–D25512; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 315, 387, 388), while an 1817 watercolour shows The Pfalz on the Rhine (currently untraced).3

Matthew Imms
November 2019

1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.1037.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.465 no.1378, as ‘Caub and the Castle of Gutenfels on the Rhine’, c.1840.
3
Ibid., pp.374–5 no.643, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Pfalz (Burg Pfalzgrafenstein) on the River Rhine, with the Dicker Turm in Kaub 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2019, 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-pfalz-burg-pfalzgrafenstein-on-the-river-rhine-with-the-r1204112, accessed 08 June 2026.