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 ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Burg Katz, above the River Rhine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Burg Katz, above the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 50 Verso:
Burg Katz, above the River Rhine 1840
D30555
Turner Bequest CCCIII 49a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This rapid drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 it shows the ruins of Burg Katz, since restored, high on the east bank of the River Rhine above Sankt Goarhausen. The castle is possibly seen in the distance on folio 47 recto (D30548; Turner Bequest CCCIII 46).
Powell has noted that Turner neared the end of this tour following ‘the familiar route of the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne. He almost certainly travelled by steamer, ... sketching most of the well-known sights perfunctorily as he passed.’2 Given that this sketchbook was used in reverse of its subsequent foliation, she has specified the overall range of this phase as ‘TB CCCIII 68v–20v; 11r’,3 indicating folios 12 recto and 21 verso–69 verso (D30479, D30497–D30592; Turner Bequest CCCIII 20a–68a); see this book’s Introduction for the full itinerary of this part of the journey.
For other Burg Katz views, see the 1817 Itinerary Rhine Tour, Waterloo and Rhine and Rhine sketchbooks (respectively Tate D12618; Turner Bequest CLIX 57; D12703, D12780, D12782, D12816, D12848; CLX 1a, 41a, 42a, 59a, 75a; D12920–D12921, D12924–D12931, D12933–D12937, D12959–D12960; CLXI 22a, 23, 24a–27, 28–30, 41a, 42), the 1833 Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine sketchbook (D29668, D29701, D29709–D29713; CCXCVI 37, 54a, 58a–60a), 1839 Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence sketchbook (D28454, D28457–D28458, D28506; CCXC 52a, 54, 54a, 78a), and the 1844 Rhine and Rhine Castles sketchbook (D35183, D35186, D35203, D35209, D35211, D35213–D35215, D35217; CCCLI 7a, 9, 17a, 20a, 21a, 22a–23a, 24a).
Turner made three 1817 watercolours of the vicinity: Katz Castle and Rheinfels (private collection);4 Rheinfels Looking to Katz and Goarhausen (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven);5 and From Rheinfels Looking over St Goar to Katz (currently untraced).6 There is also a watercolour of about 1841, Burg Rheinfels on the Rhine (private collection),7 another of about 1844, On the Rhine: Looking over St Goar to Katz, from Rheinfels (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford),8 and a double-sided one from about that year, St Goar Looking towards St Goarhausen, with Katz shown on the verso (Eton College).9

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.
4
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.375 no.649, reproduced.
5
Ibid., no.650, reproduced.
6
Ibid., p.378 no.677, reproduced.
7
Ibid., p.459 no.1327, as ‘A castle in the mountains’, ?1844, reproduced.
8
Ibid., p.462 no.1329, reproduced.
9
Ibid., p.461 no.1342, reproduced (both sides).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Burg Katz, above the River Rhine 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-burg-katz-above-the-river-rhine-r1196312, accessed 22 September 2024.