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 Bingen and the Rochuskapelle, Looking up the River Rhine 1840

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bingen and the Rochuskapelle, Looking up the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 67 Recto:
Bingen and the Rochuskapelle, Looking up the River Rhine 1840
D30587
Turner Bequest CCCIII 66
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark: Tree of Liberty
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘66’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 66’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 it shows the outlines of Bingen and the Rochuskapelle (chapel of St Roch), looking east up the River Rhine.
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 Bingen views in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 65 recto (D30583; CCCIII 64). The chapel is shown again on folio 64 verso (D30582; CCCIII 63a). It also appears in the 1817 Waterloo and Rhine sketchbook (Tate D12840–D12841; Turner Bequest CLX 71a, 72).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Bingen and the Rochuskapelle, Looking up 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-bingen-and-the-rochuskapelle-looking-up-the-river-rhine-r1196344, accessed 20 September 2024.