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 > Meuse-Moselle Gouache and Watercolour ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ehrenbreitstein from Coblenz c.1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ehrenbreitstein from Coblenz’ c.1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Ehrenbreitstein from Coblenz c.1839
D24833
Turner Bequest CCLIX 268
Gouache and watercolour on blue wove paper, 141 x 192 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX 268’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Here Turner shows Koblenz’s fortress of Ehrenbreitstein at left, shaded with burnt umber and terracotta gouache. To the right, marked out in a line of blurred black daubs, is a pontoon bridge which is the central feature of Turner Bequest CCLIX 239. The domed Church of the Holy Cross is at centre, faintly suggested in milky white gouache.
This gouache is a companion piece to Tate D24804; Turner Bequest CCLIX 239 and Tate D28409; Turner Bequest CCLIX 244, in terms of colouring, Turner’s handling, and the fact that when put together, all three gouaches ‘show a wide angled view’ from the same or similar viewpoint of Ehrenbreitstein.1
Holy Cross Church and the fortress are shown in a detailed pencil study in the Waterloo and Rhine sketchbook of 1817 (Tate D12803; Turner Bequest CLX 53).
1
Powell 1991, p.150 no.82.
Verso:
Inscribed in red ink, possibly by Ruskin, ‘?1124’ (inverted) at top right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLIX–268’ twice, at top left and bottom right

Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Ehrenbreitstein from Coblenz c.1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 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-from-coblenz-r1151020, accessed 25 April 2024.