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 > Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner St Michael's Church, Merl; Sketches of the Marienburg and its Setting 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘St Michael's Church, Merl; Sketches of the Marienburg and its Setting’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Verso:
St Michael’s Church, Merl; Sketches of the Marienburg and its Setting 1839
D28378
Turner Bequest CCXC 14 a
Pencil on flecked off-white wove paper, 163 x 100 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Meril’ (inverted) centre left
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The majority of these small sketches depict the Marienburg, a former Augustinian monastery built near the ruins of a Roman fortress in Zell an der Mosel. The sketches are orientated both in accordance with the foliation and inversely. There is also one small sketch of St Michael’s Church at Merl, a town neighbouring Zell and Kaimt. Turner has rendered its medieval spired tower, inscribing the word ‘Merel’ at its base.
The gestural markings rendered in blunt pencil at the bottom of the page (with the sketchbook orientated in accordance with the foliation) extend to the corresponding area on the folio opposite (Tate D28379; Turner Bequest CCXC 15). When seen together, these markings appear to form a very rough valley landscape.
For other sketches of the Marienburg in this sketchbook see Tate D28379, D28380; Turner Bequest CCXC 15, 15a. See also the First Mossel and Oxford sketchbook of the 1839 tour (Tate D28299; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 5).
Turner recorded the monastery extensively during his 1824 Meuse-Mosel tour; see the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (Tate D19773–D19775, D19779, D19780; Turner Bequest CCXVI 112a–113a, 114a, 115) and the Moselle (or Rhine) sketchbook (Tate D20163, D20164, D20187; Turner Bequest CCXIX 2, 3, 26).

Alice Rylance-Watson
July 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘St Michael’s Church, Merl; Sketches of the Marienburg and its Setting 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 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-st-michaels-church-merl-sketches-of-the-marienburg-and-its-r1150663, accessed 24 April 2024.