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 Views on the Moselle, including the Abandoned Fort of Montroyal 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views on the Moselle, including the Abandoned Fort of Montroyal’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Verso:
Views on the Moselle, including the Abandoned Fort of Montroyal 1839
D28382
Turner Bequest CCXC 16 a
Pencil on flecked off-white wove paper, 163 x 100 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Bridel’, ‘V’, ‘Road’ at top left (inverted)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the exception of the drawing of the church at Briedel, the majority of these rough and quick sketches, all produced by Turner with the sketchbook turned upside down, depict the ruins of the Montroyal fortress at Traben-Trarbach. The fortress was constructed in 1687 by Louis XIV’s chief military engineer Vauban atop the peninsular mountain range high above the town of Traben.1 Montroyal fell into ruin only eleven years after its construction following the Treaty of Rijswijk.2 More sketches of the monument are on folio 17 recto (Tate D28383; Turner Bequest CCXC 17).
Beneath the sketch of the church at Briedel Turner has inscribed ‘Bridel’ and below, there are the annotations ‘Road’ and ‘v’, presumably short for ‘vines’.

Alice Rylance-Watson
July 2013

1
‘Mont Royal Fortress Ruins’, Mosel Treffpunkt: Traben-Trarbach, http://www.traben-trarbach.de/nextshopcms/show.asp?lang=en&e1=993, accessed 16 July 2013.
2
Ibid.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Views on the Moselle, including the Abandoned Fort of Montroyal 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-views-on-the-moselle-including-the-abandoned-fort-of-r1150667, accessed 25 April 2024.