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

The page was used vertically both ways up for views in the vicinity of Schloss Neuhaus, above the north bank of the River Danube north-west of Linz, as identified by Cecilia Powell;1 see under folio 223 verso opposite for other views. There are more signs of activity here than in most of the adjacent river views, with boats and perhaps figures in the upper two drawings, and a vigorously smoking steamboat at the bottom. Turner’s colour note may refer to the smoke or a shadowy hillside beyond.

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 folio 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.