Joseph Mallord William Turner The Walhalla from near the Chinese Pavilion on Wörtherstrasse, Donaustauf, near Regensburg, with the Danube Valley Beyond 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 36 Verso:
The Walhalla from near the Chinese Pavilion on Wörtherstrasse, Donaustauf, near Regensburg, with the Danube Valley Beyond 1840
D31347
Turner Bequest CCCX 36a
Turner Bequest CCCX 36a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 126 x 198 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. Wh’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Claude Dis’ top centre, and ‘Danube’ and ‘Gardens’ towards top right
Partial watermark ‘J. Wh’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Claude Dis’ top centre, and ‘Danube’ and ‘Gardens’ towards top right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.998, CCCX 36a, as ‘Do. [i.e. ditto: Buildings on hill], &c. – “Claude Dis.”’.
1995
Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.69, 70, 81 note 45, 82 note 53, p.243, as ‘(1) The Walhalla from Wörtherstrasse, showing a house in that street and the Wirtshaus zur Walhalla | (2) View down the Danube (a near continuation of (1)) | Inscr. Claude Dis[tance]; Gardens; Danube’.
1995
Pia Müller-Tamm, ‘Walhalla’ section of ‘»... als breitete ein dichter Morgennebel seinen Schleier aus«: Deutsche Landschaften in malerischen Spätwerk J.M.W. Turners’ in Cecilia Powell and Müller-Tamm, William Turner in Deutschland, exhibition catalogue, [Städtische] Kunsthalle Mannheim 1995, p.108.
2015
Ian Warrell, ‘Turner in Regensburg, 1840: Conflagration and Catholicism’, Turner Society News, no.123, Spring 2015, p.4.
With the page turned horizontally, the main view is from the raised roadway on the north side of Wörtherstrasse, Donaustauf, where the heavy criss-crossed railings survive. On the hill to the east is the outline of the classical Walhalla memorial, now hidden by dense woodland. The Danube Valley is below to the right, and the prospect is continued above the main view, with a reprise of the outline of the Walhalla on the left. The subject was identified by Cecilia Powell.1 In the foreground of the subsidiary view is the Chinese-style tea pavilion which still stands in a small wooded park (noted by Turner as ‘Gardens’) on the south side of Wörtherstrasse.
An effect over the hills and river marked ‘Claude Dis[tance]’ evidently reminded Turner of the light-filled paintings of the Rome-based French painter Claude Lorrain (1604/5–1682), whom he greatly admired and often emulated,2 occasionally recalling his name while sketching;3 see for example a note of ‘The first bit of Claude’ in the 1819 Ancona to Rome sketchbook as he travelled through Italy for the first time (Tate D14663; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 6). Elsewhere in the present book, Turner’s short-lived contemporary Thomas Girtin is specifically evoked; see folio 68 recto (D31410).
Powell has noted that the view west on folio 37 recto opposite (D31348) is ‘from the same spot’.4 For numerous contemporary views of Donaustauf, the adjacent St Salvator’s Church and the Walhalla in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 33 verso (D31341);5 for nearby Regensburg, see under folio 18 verso (D31311).6
Matthew Imms
September 2018
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘The Walhalla from near the Chinese Pavilion on Wörtherstrasse, Donaustauf, near Regensburg, with the Danube Valley Beyond 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