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

Roughly rendered, the upper sketches show the Moselle valley approaching the village of Senheim. The community is depicted cradled on all sides by the low sloping Hunsrück range. The spire of Senheim’s church, dedicated to St Remigius, is visible. A ‘warm light’ bathes the scene, and lush ‘v[ines]’ cover the hillsides.

Turner uses the rest of the page to record aspects of Beilstein’s Burg Metternich, a ruined castle dating back to the early thirteenth century. Originally the property of the Electors of Cologne, the castle was passed on to the noble family of Winneberg-Metternich in the fourteenth century. The building suffered much damage in the turmoil of the Thirty Years War and was besieged again in 1794 by French Revolutionary armies. Captured in linear profile as his boat navigated past, Turner draws the jagged outlines of the castle’s hollowed weather-worn form.

For further drawings of the Burg Metternich in this book see Tate D19787, D19788, D19790, D19792, D20166, D20167; Turner Bequest CCXVI 118a, 119, 120, 121, CCXIX 5, 6. For later drawings, see Tate D28301, D28320, D28321, D28364, D28366–D28368, D28527, D28528, D28537; Turner Bequest CCLXXXIX 6a, 15a, 16, CCXC 7a, 8a–9a, 86a, 87, 91a. See also the 1839 gouache and watercolour drawing: Tate D20239; Turner Bequest CCXXI F.