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 Passau, with the Oberhaus, Niederhaus and Cathedral down the River Danube 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Passau, with the Oberhaus, Niederhaus and Cathedral down the River Danube’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 28 Recto:
Passau, with the Oberhaus, Niederhaus and Cathedral down the River Danube 1840
D30054
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 28
Pencil on cream wove paper, 127 x 198 mm
Partial watermark ‘J. Wha’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘28’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 28’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 with the page turned horizontally the view is east-south-east along the south bank of the Danube north-west of St Stephen’s Cathedral, with the Oberhaus fortress at the top left and the outline of the Niederhaus below on the opposite bank. Compare the nearby views on folios 22 verso and 23 recto (D30044–D30045); for other drawings in this sketchbook and elsewhere, see under folio 31 recto (D30058).
The two disks at the centre may represent two successive positions of the rising sun, or conversely the moon, which was full on 11 September 1840,2 in the week between Turner’s recorded presences in Vienna (see under folio 40 recto; D30076) and Regensburg as he travelled west on this stage of the tour (see the overall Introduction).
1
See Powell 1995, p.241.
2
See ‘Moon Phases 1840 – Lunar Calendar for Passau, Bavaria, Germany’, timeanddate.com, accessed 21 March 2018, https://www.timeanddate.com/moon/phases/germany/passau?year=1840.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Passau, with the Oberhaus, Niederhaus and Cathedral down the River Danube 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-passau-with-the-oberhaus-niederhaus-and-cathedral-down-the-r1196904, accessed 20 September 2024.