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 Lahn towards its Confluence with the Rhine, with Burg Lahneck in the Distance 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View down the Lahn towards its Confluence with the Rhine, with Burg Lahneck in the Distance’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 17 Recto:
View down the Lahn towards its Confluence with the Rhine, with Burg Lahneck in the Distance 1824
D20155
Turner Bequest CCXVIII 17
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 220 x 291 mm
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘17’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVIII–17’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This summary sketch is a view of the River Lahn, pictured close to the point at which it joins the Rhine at Lahnstein. At right, in blunt dark pencil, Turner has recorded the profile of a traditional building with a mansard roof. Atop the conical mount in the distance is Burg Lahneck. The castle dates back to 1226, constructed by the Archbishop of Mainz, Siegfried III of Eppstein, to protect his territories at the mouth of the Lahn.1 By the time of Turner’s visit it had been heavily damaged, besieged in 1633 by Imperial troops during the Thirty Years War.2
For other 1824 drawings of Burg Lahneck see the sketchbooks Rivers Meuse and Moselle and Trèves and Rhine (Tate D19829, D19831, D19833, D19834, D20157, D20159; Turner Bequest CCXVI 139a, 140a, 141a, 142, CCXVIII 19, 21). For earlier views see the Itinerary Rhine Tour sketchbook of 1817 (Tate D12659; Turner Bequest CCLIX 81a); the Waterloo and Rhine and Rhine sketchbooks of the same date (Tate D12808, D12811, D12812, D12852, D12906, D12907, D12911, D12980; Turner Bequest CLX 55a, 57, 57a, 77, CLXI 13a, 14, 17, 52).
1
‘History’, Burg Lahneck, http://www.burg-lahneck.de/html/gb.html, accessed 23 July 2013.
2
Ibid.
Verso:
Blank

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘View down the Lahn towards its Confluence with the Rhine, with Burg Lahneck in the Distance 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 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-lahn-towards-its-confluence-with-the-rhine-r1174894, accessed 19 April 2024.