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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Oberlahnstein, Burg Lahneck and the Martinsburg, Looking Downstream 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 89 Recto:
Oberlahnstein, Burg Lahneck and the Martinsburg, Looking Downstream 1839
D28524
Turner Bequest CCXC 85
Pencil on flecked off-white wove paper, 100 x 163 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Laneck’ top right
Inscribed in blue ink by Ruskin ‘85’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CCXC–85’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner depicts the town of Oberlahnstein situated in the foothills of the Westerwald and Taunus and at the confluence of the Lahn and Rhine rivers, approximately four miles south of Koblenz. Owing to their strategic importance on the Rhine, Oberlahnstein and Niederlahnstei (Lower and Upper Lahnstein) were heavily fortified, dominated by Lahneck and Martinsburg Castles and the Schloss Stolzenfels. It is the Burg Lahneck and the tower of the Martinsburg which Turner represents in this sketch, the former in the distance and the latter in the foreground. The artist has also inscribed ‘Laneck’ at the top right of the drawing.
For depictions of Burg Lahneck and Martinsburg elsewhere in this sketchbook see Tate D28448, D28450–D28453, D28526–D28528; Turner Bequest CCXC 49a, 50a–52, 86–87. For earlier views see the Itinerary Rhine Tour sketchbook of 1817 (Tate D12659; Turner Bequest CCLIX 81a); the Waterloo and Rhine and Rhine sketchbooks of the same date (Tate D12808, D12811, D12812, D12852, D12906, D12907, D12911, D12980; Turner Bequest CLX 55a, 57, 57a, 77, CLXI 13a, 14, 17, 52). See also the 1824 sketchbooks Rivers Meuse and Moselle and Trèves and Rhine (Tate D19829, D19831, D19833, D19834, D20157, D20159; Turner Bequest CCXVI 139a, 140a, 141a, 142, CCXVIII 19, 21).

Alice Rylance-Watson
July 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Oberlahnstein, Burg Lahneck and the Martinsburg, Looking Downstream 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-oberlahnstein-burg-lahneck-and-the-martinsburg-looking-r1150804, accessed 28 March 2024.