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 The Pfalz, Kaub and Burg Gutenfels, Looking down the River Rhine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Pfalz, Kaub and Burg Gutenfels, Looking down the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 56 Verso:
The Pfalz, Kaub and Burg Gutenfels, Looking down the River Rhine 1840
D30567
Turner Bequest CCCIII 55a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As identified by Finberg and Cecilia Powell,1 it shows the Pfalz (Burg Pfalzgrafenstein) on its island in the Rhine, with Kaub beyond on the east bank and Burg Gutenfels high above it, looking north-west down the river. There are the sails of a barge in the foreground, also shown in the similar view on the recto (D30566).
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 Pfalz views in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 55 verso (D30565; CCCIII 54a), and for Kaub and Burg Gutenfels, under folio 54 verso (D30563; CCCIII 53a).
1
Finberg 1909, II, p.980; Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.
Technical notes:
There is a narrow stroke or splash of what appears to be ink below left of centre, which has bled through to the recto (D30566).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Pfalz, Kaub and Burg Gutenfels, Looking down 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-the-pfalz-kaub-and-burg-gutenfels-looking-down-the-river-r1196324, accessed 24 April 2024.