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 The Oberhaus, Passau, with the View up the Ilz Valley 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Oberhaus, Passau, with the View up the Ilz Valley’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 53 Recto:
The Oberhaus, Passau, with the View up the Ilz Valley 1840
D31380
Turner Bequest CCCX 53
Pencil on cream wove paper, 126 x 198 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘53’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCX – 53’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Cecilia Powell has identified the subject as the Oberhaus fortress overlooking the Ilz Valley.1 It is seen in steep perspective on the skyline to the west, with the spire of St Bartholomäus’s Church on the Ilzstadt bank to the right. The vantage point is above the confluence with the Danube (behind the viewer).
Folio 52 verso opposite (D31379) includes a view to the end of the Ilz’s west bank from a similar position; see also the verso (D31381). For numerous contemporary views of Passau in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 48 verso (D31371).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.244.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Oberhaus, Passau, with the View up the Ilz Valley 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-the-oberhaus-passau-with-the-view-up-the-ilz-valley-r1196168, accessed 20 September 2024.