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

With the page turned horizontally both ways, there are two distinct subjects here, albeit both along the River Rhine. The one towards the gutter would have been drawn first, since it shows the east bank at Düsseldorf, as Turner’s scrawled note indicates; on this occasion the city had been his last identified stop before Cologne, the other subject here and on numerous adjacent pages. The most distinctive building is the lost medieval harbour crane (see under folio 139 recto; D19114), with the nearby spire of St Maximilian’s Church towards the right. The view corresponds with the right-hand half of a more detailed panorama in the contemporary Holland, Meuse and Cologne sketchbook (Tate D19465; Turner Bequest CCXV 36). There is a nearby view on folio 147 verso opposite (D19131); see under folio 138 recto (D19112), where the few other sketches of the city from this tour and other occasions are noted.

The second drawing here, at the outer edge, shows Cologne arrayed to the south along the gentle convex curve of the west bank, from near the castellated Kunibertsturm. Only its tower survives, incorporated into a modern house along the Konrad-Adenauer-Ufer boulevard. Cut off at the top right behind it are the three towers of St Cunibert’s Basilica; receding from right to left, next come the high east end of Cologne Cathedral, the spire of the Rathaus, and the spire and pinnacles of the Great St Martin church after another spire. After a few more distant steeples, the furthest landmark on that side is the slender Bayenturm tower (which Finberg mistook as the main subject here1), marking the southern limit of the central Altstadt district (see folio 154 verso; D19145). Lastly, the spire on the left marks Deutz Abbey, on the opposite bank a little south of St Martin’s.

Turner had made a more detailed drawing from the same spot in the 1817 Rhine sketchbook (Tate D12985; Turner Bequest CLXI 55). Compare a similar view in two parts on the verso of the present page (D19133), this time with St Cunibert’s Basilica in the foreground, and a panorama from further back in the Holland, Meuse and Cologne book (D19457–D19458; CCXV 31a–32).

Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll2 and Karl Heinz Stader3 linked the present sketch to the large oil painting Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet Boat. Evening, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1826 (Frick Collection, New York).4 Although the painting shows the river between Deutz Abbey and St Martin’s, its viewpoint is about level with the cathedral, and the present page was unlikely to have been a source given more relevant sketches, as discussed under folio 143 recto (D19122). Despite nineteenth-century redevelopment, substantial damage during the Second World War and later bridges, all the features of Cologne’s main river prospects mentioned above remain recognisable. See under folio 141 recto (D19118) for discussion of views of the city from this tour and other occasions.5