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

There is only one subject here, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation and taking up only a quarter of the page. It shows buildings on a riverside hill, and is labelled ‘Altenburgh’,1 likely indicating Altenberg, part of Sankt Andrä-Wördern on the south side of the Danube just west of Burg Greifensten (see under folio 11 verso; D30023). Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Street scene; an interior; castle on hill, &c. – “Allnburgh” &c.’): ‘6a | 7a} ?Albensberg, nr. Ratisbon | Ritenberg. | Count Beust’s Chateau on Danube nr Vienna | Baed. Aust. p 269.’2 The latter suggestion (from an unknown edition of Baedeker’s guidebook to Austria) seems correct, as Graf von Beust, at one stage the Austrian Chancellor, died at Schloss Altenberg in 1882.3 See also folio 6 verso (D30013).

Although Turner’s route upriver was straightforward, his somewhat haphazard use of this book to record it was not. For the geographical sequence of identified views between Vienna and Passau (see under folios 40 recto and 31 recto; D30076, D30058), see this sketchbook’s Introduction.