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 Donaustauf and the Walhalla, near Regensburg, in the Distance, with a Figure Kneeling at a Wayside Shrine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Donaustauf and the Walhalla, near Regensburg, in the Distance, with a Figure Kneeling at a Wayside Shrine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Verso:
Donaustauf and the Walhalla, near Regensburg, in the Distance, with a Figure Kneeling at a Wayside Shrine 1840
D31349
Turner Bequest CCCX 37a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 126 x 198 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the view is east along the north side of the Danube Valley, with the ruined castle and spire of St Michael’s Church at Donaustauf in the middle distance, and the rectangular profile of the classical Walhalla memorial on the hill beyond. The subject was identified by Cecilia Powell.1 It is slightly unclear whether the figure kneeling at a religious statue in the foreground2 is directly part of the scene or a separate detail; compare the figure in the cemetery overlooking nearby Regensburg in a contemporary watercolour study (Tate D36153; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 296).
There is a closer view of the town from the same side on folio 38 recto opposite (D31350). For numerous contemporary views of Donaustauf, the adjacent Salvator’s Church and the Walhalla in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 33 verso (D31341);3 for nearby Regensburg, see under folio 18 verso (D31311).4

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.243.
2
See Müller-Tamm 1995, p.108, and Powell 1995, p.70.
3
See also Powell 1995, pp.70, 82 note 53.
4
See ibid., pp.69, 81 note 45.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Donaustauf and the Walhalla, near Regensburg, in the Distance, with a Figure Kneeling at a Wayside Shrine 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-donaustauf-and-the-walhalla-near-regensburg-in-the-distance-r1196137, accessed 08 May 2024.