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 Schönburg above the Liebfrauenkirche in Oberwesel, Looking down the River Rhine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Schönburg above the Liebfrauenkirche in Oberwesel, Looking down the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 53 Verso:
The Schönburg above the Liebfrauenkirche in Oberwesel, Looking down the River Rhine 1840
D30561
Turner Bequest CCCIII 52a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
 
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 ruins of the Schönburg castle, since restored, high above the Gothic spire of the Liebfrauenkirche in Oberwesel on the west bank of the Rhine, looking downriver to the north-west. There is a related view on folio 54 recto opposite (D30562; Turner Bequest CCCIII 53).
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 Oberwesel and Schönburg views in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 52 recto (D30558; CCCIII 51).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Schönburg above the Liebfrauenkirche in Oberwesel, Looking down 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-schonburg-above-the-liebfrauenkirche-in-oberwesel-r1196318, accessed 23 April 2024.