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 > Cochem to Coblenz - Home Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ehrenbreitstein and the Mosel Bridge at Coblenz; The Mosel Front at Coblenz Upstream of the Bridge 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ehrenbreitstein and the Mosel Bridge at Coblenz; The Mosel Front at Coblenz Upstream of the Bridge’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Verso:
Ehrenbreitstein and the Mosel Bridge at Coblenz; The Mosel Front at Coblenz Upstream of the Bridge 1839
D28603
Turner Bequest CCXCI 34 a
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 100 x 156 mm
Watermarked ‘[& co]mp’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner developed the largest of these pencil sketches of Koblenz into an evocative and richly coloured gouache towards the end of 1839 (National Galleries of Scotland).1 The Moselle is shown in the foreground, traversed by an ancient stone bridge, flowing towards the point of its confluence with the Rhine. The steeply gabled twin towers of the Romanesque Basilica of St Castor can be seen at right, and next to it, the ornate baroque twin towers of the Liebfrauenkirche. The entire view is dominated by the citadel of Ehrenbreitstein, which crowns a ridge on the east bank of the Rhine.
Parallel to the gutter of the sketchbook Turner has rendered a further view of the city from the stone bridge. The Liebfrauenkirche is visible at left.
For other drawings of Ehrenbreitstein and Koblenz in this sketchbook see Tate D28596, D28605–D28607; Turner Bequest CCXCI 31, 35a–36a. See also the Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence sketchbook (Tate D28351– D28353, D28356, D28437–D28447, D28530–D28533 and the First Mossel and Oxford sketchbook (Tate D28301–D28303, D28306, D28316, D28317; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 6–7, 8a, 13a, 14).
For earlier depictions of Ehrenbreitstein see the Waterloo and Rhine sketchbook of 1817 (Tate D12781–D12783, D12802–D12806, D12809; Turner Bequest CLX 42–43, 52a–54a, 56); the Rhine sketchbook of the same date (Tate D12894, D12899, D12901–D12902, D12908; Turner Bequest 7, 10, 11–11a, 15); the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook of 1824 (Tate D19785, D19818–D19821, D19826–D19830; Turner Bequest CCXVI 117a, 134–135a, 140). There are also a number of fine colour drawings depicting the fortress and neighbouring Coblenz, some of which include: Tate D24804, D24809, D24833, D36138, D36206; Turner Bequest CCLIX 239, 244, 268, CCCLXIV 285, 346.

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.422 no.1034.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Ehrenbreitstein and the Mosel Bridge at Coblenz; The Mosel Front at Coblenz Upstream of the Bridge 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-ehrenbreitstein-and-the-mosel-bridge-at-coblenz-the-mosel-r1150887, accessed 26 April 2024.