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 ... > Trieste, Graz and Danube Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Danube near the Ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl); the Castle Upstream 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Danube near the Ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl); the Castle Upstream’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Recto:
The River Danube near the Ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl); the Castle Upstream 1840
D30043
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 22
Pencil on cream wove paper, 198 x 127 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Keresburg’ bottom right, upside down, and ‘St Machael’ below centre, upside down
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘22’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 22’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The page was used vertically both ways for three views along the River Danube about half-way between Passau and Linz, as identified by Cecilia Powell.1 They are all in the vicinity of the ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl), high above the tight S-bend near Schlögen. In the sketch at the bottom the castle is seen to the south; see also folios 21 recto and verso (D30041–D30042).
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 the Ruins of Haichenbach (the Kerschbaumer Schlössl); the Castle Upstream 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-the-ruins-of-haichenbach-the-r1196893, accessed 19 April 2024.