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 Inn at Passau, with the Cathedral on the Altstadt, and the Oberhaus Beyond 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Inn at Passau, with the Cathedral on the Altstadt, and the Oberhaus Beyond’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 31 Recto:
The River Inn at Passau, with the Cathedral on the Altstadt, and the Oberhaus Beyond 1840
D30058
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 31
Pencil on cream wove paper, 127 x 198 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘31’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 31’ bottom left, descending 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 north across the River Inn to the centre of Passau, apparently with slight indications of the receding roadbed of the Marienbrücke in the foreground. The twin towers at the west end of the Baroque St Stephen’s Cathedral have since been extended upwards with cupolas to about the same height as the main dome. The Oberhaus fortress is shown beyond at the top right, overlooking the River Danube on the far side of the city centre. The view is continued to the right with a separate full-page drawing on folio 30 recto (D30056).
Passau is shown on several other pages in the present book (folios 17 verso, 18 recto, 22 verso, 23 recto, 28 recto, and 30 recto and verso; D30035–D30036, D30044–D30045, D30054, D30056–D30057), and in numerous pencil sketches in the contemporary Venice; Passau to Würzburg book (see under Tate D31371; Turner Bequest CCCX 48a). There are also colour studies on separate sheets (D28993, D29006; CCXCII 46, 57), and watercolours and an untinted drawing in the larger Passau and Burg Hals sketchbook (D33668, D33674–D33675; CCCXL 3, 9, 10). These led to one finished watercolour, of Passau, Germany, at the Confluence of the Rivers Inn and Danube (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin),2 discussed under folio 18 recto (D30036).
For the city in the context of the overall route embodied in the present sketchbook, see the Introduction.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Powell 1995, p.241.
2
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.458 no.1317, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The River Inn at Passau, with the Cathedral on the Altstadt, and the Oberhaus Beyond 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-inn-at-passau-with-the-cathedral-on-the-altstadt-r1196908, accessed 23 April 2024.