With the page turned horizontally, there are two related views here. The larger, occupying most of the page, appears to be continuous, and shows a sailing barge at Wijk bij Duurstede, immediately downstream from where the River Nederrijn, itself a distributary of the Rhine, branches off to the north as the Kromme (‘crooked’) Rijn; the main channel shown here becomes the Lek from that point. The small city is confined to the north bank, with the heavily articulated Gothic tower of St John the Baptist’s Church on the left, balanced by a windmill to the right of the barge. This appears to be the one that stands today at the back of the small harbour west of the point where the river divides; it is particularly unusual in being set on an archway over the road, although the drawing does not show this feature.
The right-hand half of the slightly disjointed upper drawing reprises the main view, and extends it to the left to include the moated medieval Kasteel Duurstede in its riverside grounds south-west of the church, reduced here to its bare essentials, with the delicate spires of its intact round western tower recognisable beside the rough-hewn shell of the eastern. The biggest change in the area since Turner’s day is the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal, which intersects with the river just downstream of Wijk.
Turner continued along the Lek, which he had followed in its Nederrijn guise from Arnhem (see inside the front cover;
D32541; CCCXXII 1), apparently to Schoonhoven (see folios 22 recto and 23 recto;
D32584,
D32586; CCCXXII 23, 24), and then on to Rotterdam (see under folio 14 recto (
D32568; CCCXXII 15) along the Nieuwe Maas. For this sketchbook’s overall route between Augsburg (see under folio 1 verso;
D32543; CCCXXII 2a) and Rotterdam, much of it by way of the Rhine and its distributaries, see the Introduction.
A striking oil by the Dutch painter Jacob van Ruisdael (1628–1682), whom Turner came to greatly admire,
1 De molen bij Wijk bij Duurstede of about 1668–70 (Rijksmusem, Amsterdam, on long-term loan from the Amsterdam Museum), shows a different windmill, closer to the river in the foreground, with the castle and church as minor details on the skyline. Now well-known, it was in private hands in Turner’s time; it had been auctioned in London in May 1828,
2 but even if he had seen it, it is a moot point as to whether he would have made a connection with the scene he drew here as he passed.
There is a brief continuation towards the bottom right from one of the views on folio 49 recto opposite (
D32636; Turner Bequest CCCXXII 50), which show the church at Rhenen, about ten miles upstream.
Matthew Imms
November 2019
