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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Meuse-Mosel, Luxembourg and Northern ... > Trèves and Rhine Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Trier from the West, Looking up the Moselle 1824

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Trier from the West, Looking up the Moselle’ 1824
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Recto:
Trier from the West, Looking up the Moselle 1824
D20153
Turner Bequest CCXVIII 15
Pencil, chalk and watercolour on white wove paper, 220 x 291 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Red’ far right centre
Inscribed in red ink by Ruskin ‘15’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXVIII–15’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Carefully wrought in parts and summarily rendered in others, this study of Trier was taken by Turner on the west bank of the Moselle as he looked up the river towards the Roman bridge. The east bank is sharply delineated, its buildings represented in crisp definition and highlighted with brief hatches of chalk. Visible is the Martinskloster, St Mattias’s Abbey and the cruciform shape of the ancient harbour crane (Der Alte Krahnen). Beyond, in linear profile, is the Church of St Gangolf, the cathedral and Liebfrauenkirche. Tall trees at the river’s edge form a repoussoir; one tree shaded in loosely scalloped hatching and the others left bare, with mere cursory suggestions of their branches and heavy-hanging foliage. Turner has included a figure manoeuvering a cart at bottom centre: a token of daily life and labour on the banks of the River Moselle.
For similar views see Tate D19725, D19729; Turner Bequest CCXVI 88a, 90a.
Verso:
Blank

Alice Rylance-Watson
December 2013

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Trier from the West, Looking up the Moselle 1824 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-trier-from-the-west-looking-up-the-moselle-r1174892, accessed 20 May 2024.