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

Rendered in much the same free and summary manner as Tate D19829; Turner Bequest CCXVI 139a, this sketch of the Castles of Lahneck and Stolzenfels was taken by Turner near Lahnstein, a town situated a few kilometres south of Koblenz. Burg Lahneck is the larger of the two castles shown here, with Stolzenfels in the middle distance. Castle Lahneck is a thirteenth-century fortification constructed for the Archbishop of Mainz. Perched atop a vertiginous rock, its purpose was to protect the Archbishop’s territories at the confluence of the Lahn and Rhine Rivers, lands which included a lucrative silver mine located at Oberlahnstein.1 Lahneck in turn stands opposite the Schloss Stolzenfels, a medieval ruin given to the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm as a gift in 1823.2

For further sketches of the Burg Lahneck in this book and others from the 1824 tour see: Tate D19829, D19833–D19834, D20155–D20157, D20159; Turner Bequest CCXVI 139a, 141a–142, CCXVIII 17–19, 21. For earlier drawings of the monument see Tate D12695, D12808, D12811–D12812, D12905–D12907, D12910–D12911, D12973, D12979–D12980; Turner Bequest CLIX 81a, CLX 55a, 57–57a, CLXI 13–14, 17–17a, 48a, 51a–52. For later drawings see D28448, D28450–D28453, D28524, D28526, D28528, D29660, D29667–D29668; Turner Bequest CCXC 49a, 50–52, 85, 86, 87, CCXCVI 32a, 36a–37.

For drawings of the Schloss Stolzenfels see: Tate D12654, D12810, D12882, D12969, D12914–D12915, D12975, D12977–D12978, D20158, D20160, D28449, D28525, D28527–D28528; Turner Bequest CLIX 7a, CLX 56a, 93, CLXI 16, 19a–20, 49a, 50a, 51, CCXVIII 20, 22, CCXC 50, 85a, 86a–87.