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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern ... > Trèves and Rhine Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View down the Rhine to Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein, from the East Bank 1824

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View down the Rhine to Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein, from the East Bank’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
View down the Rhine to Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein, from the East Bank 1824
D20139
Turner Bequest CCXVIII 1
Watercolour, gouache, chalk, and pencil on white wove paper, 220 x 291 mm
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘1’ bottom right (inverted relative to image)
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right (inverted relative to foliation)
Stamped in black ‘CCXVIII–1’ bottom right (inverted relative to image)
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This drawing was produced with the sketchbook turned upside down. It shows a squally teal sky live with mushrooming slate grey cloud and white cumuli. The view is taken from a golden sandbank on the eastern side of the Rhine, seen at centre as it meanders towards Koblenz. The river’s waters are coldly sombre, a contrast to the grass hills of its valleys which have been rendered in vigorous and layered strokes of yellow-green, fern and olive. A daub of red watercolour has been added to the foreground: a vibrant interruption to an all in all rather drab palette.
For other views of Koblenz in this sketchbook see Tate D20140; Turner Bequest CCXVIII 2. See also the Rivers Meuse and Moselle sketchbook (Tate D19822, D19824–D19825, D19837; Turner Bequest CCXVI 136, 137–137a, 143a).
Verso:
Inscribed ‘CCXVIII–1’ top centre (inverted relative to foliation).

Alice Rylance-Watson
November 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘View down the Rhine to Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein, from the East Bank 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-view-down-the-rhine-to-coblenz-and-ehrenbreitstein-from-the-r1174877, accessed 27 April 2024.