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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Danube near Burg Marsbach; Views near the Schlögen Bend, with the Ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl) 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 21 Verso:
The River Danube near Burg Marsbach; Views near the Schlögen Bend, with the Ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl) 1840
D30042
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 21a
Pencil on cream wove paper, 198 x 127 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. Wha
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘R D’ towards bottom right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page was used vertically both ways for three views of castles above the River Danube about half-way between Passau and Linz, as identified by Cecilia Powell.1 At the top is a prospect in the vicinity of Burg Marsbach; for clearer views, see the recto (D30041). The other way up below are views of the ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl), with supplementary details, high above part of the tight S-bend near Schlögen; see also the recto and folio 22 recto opposite (D30043).
Cecilia Powell has noted that as the Danube flows to Linz from Passau, it ‘pursues its course by means of several spectacular bends’, giving Turner the chance to study the ruined castles as he sailed up this stretch ‘looking quickly now upstream, now downstream’,2 as shown in various sketches interspersed with other subjects between folios 17 recto and 26 verso (D30034–D30052).3 Although his 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.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.241.
2
Ibid., p.68.
3
See ibid., p.81 note 35.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The River Danube near Burg Marsbach; Views near the Schlögen Bend, with the Ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl) 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-river-danube-near-burg-marsbach-views-near-the-schlogen-r1196892, accessed 20 September 2024.