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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Venice; Passau to Würzburg Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Schloss Ernsthöhe (later Hohenfels), with Details; Veste Coburg and Coburg from Schloss Ernsthöhe; Veste Coburg and Schloss Ernsthöhe 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Schloss Ernsthöhe (later Hohenfels), with Details; Veste Coburg and Coburg from Schloss Ernsthöhe; Veste Coburg and Schloss Ernsthöhe’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Schloss Ernsthöhe (later Hohenfels), with Details; Veste Coburg and Coburg from Schloss Ernsthöhe; Veste Coburg and Schloss Ernsthöhe 1840
D31320
Turner Bequest CCCX 23
Pencil on cream wove paper, 126 x 198 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘23’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCX – 23’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Most of the sketches here were made with the page turned horizontally. Although Finberg correctly identified the setting as the Itz Valley,1 Cecilia Powell has shown more specifically that they represent views around Coburg.2
At the top right, seen from the south-east, is the four-square, neo-classical stone Schloss Ernsthöhe, ‘built for Duke Ernst von Württemberg, a cousin of Prince Albert, and ... completed in the very year of Turner’s visit’.3 Later known as Schloss Hohenfels, and currently the Medau-Schule, it stands on a hill just north-west of the town; this aspect is now largely obscured by trees close to the building. Above to the right is a separate elevation, complete with a flag flying.
Taken from nearby, the main view shows the Veste Coburg fortress, south-south-east of Schloss Ernsthöhe, dominating the Itz Valley high above parkland north-west of the town of Coburg itself, marked principally by the spire of St Moriz’s Church; the valley has been largely built over. Powell recognised the prospect as the source of loosely worked watercolour study (Tate D35948; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 105),4 also catalogued under the present tour. Compare the main view on folio 22 verso opposite (D31319), itself the basis for a similar watercolour (D36187; CCCLXIV 329).
Lastly, at right-angles on the right and separated by a pencil line, is a similar view across the valley towards Veste Coburg from immediately outside Schloss Ernsthöhe, which is seen where the drawing continues to the right across D31319 opposite. For the numerous other Coburg views in this book, see under folio 1 verso (D31278).5

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Finberg 1909, II, p.977.
2
See Powell 1995, p.242.
3
Ibid., p.173.
4
See ibid.
5
See also Powell 1995, pp.72, 82 notes 63 and 64.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Schloss Ernsthöhe (later Hohenfels), with Details; Veste Coburg and Coburg from Schloss Ernsthöhe; Veste Coburg and Schloss Ernsthöhe 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-schloss-ernsthohe-later-hohenfels-with-details-veste-coburg-r1196108, accessed 23 April 2024.