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 ... > The Route to Venice: The Rivers Mosel ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Landeck, with Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the North 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Landeck, with Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the North’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Landeck, with Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the North 1840
D36079
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 233
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 243 x 303 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘1589’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXIV – 233’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner made four partly finished watercolours of Landeck, an Austrian town among the Tyrol Alps at the confluence of the Rivers Sanna and Inn (Tate D36079, D36085, D36168, D36173; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 233, 239, 310, 315). They are datable to 1840 by association with swift pencil sketches in the contemporary Rotterdam to Venice sketchbook (Tate D32294–D32295, D32322; Turner Bequest CCCXX 15a, 17, 31a). The town and its impressively situated castle lie about half way between Bregenz and Bolzano (Bozen), both of which are subjects elsewhere in this subsection, on the meandering south-eastern outward route towards Venice.
All four watercolours are loosely tinted over detailed pencil work, indicating that they were at least begun on the spot, independently of the small Rotterdam to Venice sketches. Here and in D36173 the view is up the Inn to the south from near the confluence, with the Maria Himmelfahrt church at the far left. The other two show the river on the left and the castle above to the right, looking downstream.
Until recent years, only D36168 had been recognised as a Landeck view; the subjects of the four sheets were first linked by Ian Warrell in 2002,1 when D36085 was displayed at Tate Britain.
1
As noted in Tate catalogue files.
Technical notes:
The dabs of red to the right were applied or modulated with a fingertip.
Verso:
Laid down on a trimmed sheet of modern white wove paper and then directly to mount.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Landeck, with Schloss Landeck above the River Inn, from the North 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-landeck-with-schloss-landeck-above-the-river-inn-from-the-r1196429, accessed 23 September 2024.