J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Würzburg, up the River Main, from the Hillside below Schloss Steinburg 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 77 Verso:
Würzburg, up the River Main, from the Hillside below Schloss Steinburg 1840
D30607
Turner Bequest CCCIII 76a
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawings between folios 74 recto and 79 recto (D30600–D30610; Turner Bequest CCCIII 73–78), all made with the pages turned horizontally, are distant views of Würzburg, looking south from the sweeping north-westerly bend of the River Main, where the Steinberg and sloping vineyards still provide similar vantage points.
Cecilia Powell has identified the viewpoint here as below Schloss Steinburg1 (now a hotel with modern additions), along the terraced vineyards. The landmarks of the city are reduced to little more than a cluster of vertical strokes, with the Marienberg fortress rising on the west bank to the right.
For the extensive sequence of Würzburg views in this sketchbook and others elsewhere, see under folio 72 verso (D30596; CCCIII 71).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.245.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Würzburg, up the River Main, from the Hillside below Schloss Steinburg 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-wurzburg-up-the-river-main-from-the-hillside-below-schloss-r1196363, accessed 28 March 2024.