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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Northern Germany, the Elbe and Prague ... > Dresden and Saxon Switzerland Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View down the Elbe from the Bastei 1835

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View down the Elbe from the Bastei’ 1835
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Recto:
View down the Elbe from the Bastei 1835
D30996
Turner Bequest CCCVI 57
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 104 x 170 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Nonenstein’, ‘Beernstein’, ‘St Welle’ top left to right; ‘B’ centre; ‘630’ bottom centre
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘57’ top right and ‘3’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCVI 57’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is a prospect of the Elbe valley in Saxon Switzerland, taken from a vantage point on the Bastei. The mountain at centre labelled ‘B’ is the Bärenstein (inscribed in the sky as ‘Beernstein’). At rear Turner has made a note of the approximate height of the Bastei from the valley floor: ‘630’ feet. ‘Nonenstein’ and ‘St Welle’, referring to the Nonne (or Nonnenstein) rock and the town of Stadt Wehlen on the Elbe, are also inscribed.

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2015

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘View down the Elbe from the Bastei 1835 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2015, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-view-down-the-elbe-from-the-bastei-r1186868, accessed 26 April 2024.