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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > First Mossel and Oxford Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Kobern, Looking Upstream; Kobern, Looking Upstream, from further Downstream; View across the Rhine from Coblenz, Showing the Bridge of Boats at Ehrenbreitstein;Hills 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Kobern, Looking Upstream; Kobern, Looking Upstream, from further Downstream; View across the Rhine from Coblenz, Showing the Bridge of Boats at Ehrenbreitstein;Hills’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Recto:
Kobern, Looking Upstream; Kobern, Looking Upstream, from further Downstream; View across the Rhine from Coblenz, Showing the Bridge of Boats at Ehrenbreitstein;Hills 1839
D28301
Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 6
Pencil on white wove drawing paper, 235 x 140 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Belle Vue White H[?ouse]’ bottom centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘6’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXXIX–6’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The most developed of these sketches is a prospect of the ‘Festung’ or fortress of Ehrenbreitstein, taken from the city of Koblenz. Turner’s viewpoint incorporates the citadel crowning a verdant ridge and the pontoon bridge traversing the river below. At the river’s edge is a chapel and a building onto the façade of which Turner has inscribed ‘Belle Vue White H[ouse]’.
There is a gouache and watercolour drawing of Ehrenbreitstein (Tate D24804; Turner Bequest CCLIX 239) that is similar in composition and viewpoint to this sketch and that on folio 4 recto (Tate D28297; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 4). For other drawings of Ehrenbreitstein and Koblenz in this sketchbook see Tate D28297, D28302–D28303, D28306, D28316, D28317; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 4, 6a–7, 8a, 13a, 14. For other 1839 drawings of the fortress see the Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence sketchbook (Tate D28351– D28353, D28356, D28437–D28447, D28530–D28533; Turner Bequest CCXC 1–2, 3a, 44–49, 88–89a); and the Cochem to Coblenz – Home sketchbook (Tate D28603, D28605–D28607; Turner Bequest CCXCI 34a, 35a–36a).
The remaining sketches are views of Kobern with the Moselle running through it, and the remains of ancient defensive fortifications built into the cliffs surrounding it (the Oberburg and Niederburg).

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Kobern, Looking Upstream; Kobern, Looking Upstream, from further Downstream; View across the Rhine from Coblenz, Showing the Bridge of Boats at Ehrenbreitstein;Hills 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-kobern-looking-upstream-kobern-looking-upstream-from-further-r1150582, accessed 26 April 2024.