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

In this large, untrimmed watercolour study, the German city of Heidelberg and its castle are shown, looking upstream to the south-east across the River Neckar. Some elements are carefully rendered, with others left unresolved. Turner visited Heidelberg on his summer Continental tours of 1833, 1840, 1841 and 1844, making extensive pencil and watercolour sketches on the first and last occasions.

The viewpoint here is the north (right) bank,1 where a grassy embankment below the Neuenheimer Landstraße now affords a similar prospect towards the Karl-Theodor-Brücke (or Alte Brücke), with the turrets of the Brückentor at its far end. The Baroque tower of the Heiliggeistkirche, just south of the bridge, is rendered largely in pale blue shadow below the partly ruined castle, the most prominent element of which is the tall, gleaming Glockenturm. The height and profiles of the hills beyond appear characteristically exaggerated. Cecilia Powell has noted: ‘This was one of the most popular viewpoints of Heidelberg in the nineteenth century with artists of many nationalities, featuring in paintings, prints and as a frontispiece to books on the town.’2

Albeit with small variations throughout, the sheet relates closely to two highly finished watercolours of the early 1840s: Heidelberg, with a Rainbow, an afternoon scene (private collection),3 and Heidelberg, Sunset, with the moon rising (Manchester Art Gallery).4 Possibly ‘conceived as pendants’,5 both feature foregrounds crowded with figures in picturesque local costume.6 A third finished, large-scale watercolour variation is Heidelberg (National Galleries Scotland, Edinburgh)7 which, with its ‘general looseness of touch and blurring of detail’ in favour of ‘all-enveloping atmosphere’8 is generally thought likely from some years later, perhaps around 1846,9 after Turner’s last visit. It has been read as showing a sunrise over the river,10 but might equally show a bright full moon rising around sunset, as a sequel to or development of the Manchester work.11

The Rainbow variant was the basis of a large steel engraving by Thomas Abiel Prior (1809–1886), Heidelberg from the Opposite Bank of the Neckar (Tate impression: T05190; image: 364 x 544 mm; sheet: 657 x 851 mm). Prior published it on his own initiative in 1846, having previously worked as a jobbing engraver of landscape subjects. In 1913, the scholar of Turner’s prints, W.G. Rawlinson, recalled:

Turner was likely thinking of the premature end of the ambitious England and Wales series engraved from his watercolours, in 1838; see the Introduction to the present author’s ‘Colour Studies Relating to “Picturesque Views in England and Wales” c.1825–39’ section of this catalogue. As David Blayney Brown has observed, this had demonstrated ‘a fall in demand for topographical prints for which Turner himself was partly responsible, a victim of his own success with so many prints after his work already on the market.’13

The artist had occasionally used topographical sketches by others when he had not visited the sites in person, including for subjects in Italy before his 1819 tour (see Tate D32144; Turner Bequest CCCXVI 7), the eastern Mediterranean (see D17184; CXCVI T), and India (from drawings by Lt-Col G.F. White; see Tate T06477–T06479, and respective entries for engravings from Turner’s watercolour versions: T05179, T05181, T05182). Such source material was generally reworked fairly freely in his own style; although in this instance he was well acquainted with the setting, it is unclear how detailed or competent Prior’s untraced ‘sketch’ was, or to what extent he meant it to inform or dictate Turner’s interpretation.

Meanwhile, two large watercolours owned by the major Turner collector B.G. Windus were engraved by others in 1842 for Finden’s Royal Gallery of British Art: Lake Nemi (c.1840; British Museum, London;14 no Tate impression) and Oberwesel (1840; National Gallery of Art, Washington;15 Tate impression of 1844 reissue: P15501). Despite Turner’s reported protestations to Prior, it is possible that these subjects had also been painted specifically with a view to engraving.16 Windus would also become the first collector to acquire the engraved Heidelberg watercolour, presumably after Prior had completed his arduous work from it.17 Brown has noted: ‘It was this sort of watercolour, for this sort of client, that dominated Turner’s commercial output in the medium in his later years.’.18 In the event, the Heidelberg plate, the first by the engraver after Turner, was approved both by the artist and the critics, and ‘greatly enhanced Prior’s reputation’.19 He went on to make several more prints after Turner, both in the artist’s lifetime and subsequently (see Tate T05793, T05796, T05808, T06308, T06342, T06345, T06346, T06620 and T06621).

Addressing the present sheet, Finberg noncommittally called it a ‘Study for picture of Heidelberg’.20 Andrew Wilton initially considered it related to the Manchester watercolour, which he suggested was made in 1841 on the basis of the ‘10 Mar 41’ inscription here, ‘but it may be susceptible of a different interpretation’21 (see towards the end of the present entry). He subsequently quoted Rawlinson’s account of the engraved Rainbow design, observing that it ‘may seem unlikely in view of the frequency with which Turner repeated the subject, but the story is possibly confirmed’ by the present sheet, ‘a rather unusual working drawing for the composition, partially coloured and annotated’ and ‘carefully plotted out with considerable detail, especially in the figures, as though Turner were feeling his way with an alien theme’.22 The inscribed date notwithstanding, he observed that ‘the finished watercolour has many of the characteristics of earlier work, such as England and Wales views of c.1830–5.’23

While also mentioning the engraved design, Timothy Clifford considered the present work as a ‘“colour beginning” for the Manchester sheet’.24 (For the generally less developed ‘colour beginnings’ in the Turner Bequest, see the present author’s ‘Colour Studies Relating to “Picturesque Views in England and Wales” c.1825–39’ section.) Nevertheless, the fresher afternoon colours of the engraved Rainbow watercolour and the corresponding profiles of the hills behind the castle there instead suggest that the present study was followed quite closely, or perhaps this and the Rainbow sheet were worked on simultaneously for a time, until the finished version emerged with the addition of further details and the many figures in its foreground. The Manchester work appears slightly mannered overall, with less ‘narrative incident’, as Cecilia Powell has described, compensated with ‘magnificent atmospheric effects which transform the prosaic reality ... into a fairyland of light and colour’.25 This study has also sometimes been linked with the Edinburgh watercolour,26 although the connection is clearly less direct in that instance.

The details in the central area of the present sheet are quite advanced in places, but peter out towards the edges. Two small pencil shapes, an ‘L’ in the brown area towards the bottom left and a slightly higher, reversed counterpart over the lightly washed-in river towards the bottom right, may be Turner’s marks to indicate the potential limits of the finished composition. The stronger blue washes across the sky stop well short of the top and corners, although the landscape continues across the full width of the sheet. The pencilled ‘corners’ and the limits implied by the rough margins left around the sky create a notional limit of about 350 x 510 mm, as compared with the trimmed 347 x 528 mm extent of the finished Rainbow design; the Sunset variant is somewhat larger, at 380 x 552 mm. Turner’s completed watercolours were habitually neatly trimmed to the composition, without any margin. Few, if any, other colour studies were taken to such a degree of finish and then apparently abandoned with a wide working border; see the technical notes for a suggested reason in this case. Compare the much rougher working sheet proposed by the present author as a study for a large watercolour of Bamborough Castle exhibited in 1837 (private collection),27 with ruled pencil lines on all sides, possibly to establish the proportions.

Turner had first made extensive studies around Heidelberg and its castle in the 1833 Heidelberg up to Salzburg sketchbook; in this context, Powell has listed in particular Tate D29840, D29841, D29843 and D29844 (CCCXCVIII 14, 14a, 15a, 16).28 The Berne, Heidelberg and Rhine book, datable to the late summer of 1841, when Turner was perhaps already working on at least one of the watercolours related to the present study, also includes slighter sketches in the vicinity (D32957–D32962, D32966; CCCXXVI 39a–42, 44). Powell has noted that those ‘sketches are far too vague to have made any contribution to them and Turner would have walked and sketched on the shore simply for his own enjoyment.’29 However, Turner scholar David Hill has noted that D32959 (CCCXXVI 40a) is closest in its juxtaposition of the buildings across the river, and that the artist may have revisited the city with more purpose, ‘to weigh up the complete range of possibilities looking over the river to the bridge, castle and town, and to record the complete range of shifting permutations amongst the key elements’.30

Robert Upstone has pointed out that the scene in the present work does not quite correspond with either of the first two finished watercolours, suggesting that its viewpoint is ‘from a slightly different position on the riverbank, not as close to the bridge as [the Rainbow variant], but not as far away as [the Sunset variant]. There are, however, resemblances between the position of some of the figures in the latter’ and those here.31 They include one leaning on the wall and typically staring out at the viewer in the study; several of the students in their archaic outfits in the Sunset view do the same. On the other hand, the scattered array of cloth and baskets in this study also have counterparts in the Rainbow variant, where there is more activity and detail on the foreshore than in the Sunset version, which conversely includes a closer equivalent of the broad, flat-topped wall which leads the eye into the left foreground here.

In apparently fortuitous parallel with the three large watercolours of the 1840s, there are three less detailed, highly atmospheric colour studies of Heidelberg; all of similar, somewhat smaller dimensions, they show the castle and church from higher viewpoints, and were perhaps even begun on the spot or soon afterwards. Two are evening variants with warm light across the distance and shadowy foregrounds (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge;32 private collection33), and the third shows a full moon rising directly over the church as night falls, with its tower and the castle now grey silhouettes (Tate D36183; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 325). They were possibly made during or soon after the 1841 tour, and the moonlit scene is addressed elsewhere in this catalogue as a possible ‘sample study’. These were prepared for a small circle of patrons early in 1842 in hopes of their commissioning fully developed watercolours, which transpired to be almost exclusively Swiss scenes. If it were offered as an option, Heidelberg did not attract sufficient attention in that context.34

Although the first character(s) of the inscription at the top left are unclear, and do not suggest ‘10’ to the present author, David Hill has read Turner’s note in full as ‘10 23330 10 Mar 41’, suggesting ‘the amount, number and date of a bank note’, which ‘might well be a record of a deposit that Prior had paid to secure the artist’s services.’35 The five-figure central section is distinct, but would require specialist and possibly fruitless research, since ‘precise records of serial numbers for given dates have long been erased’;36 for lists of comparable numbers on the one pound notes Turner took with him to the West Country in 1811, see the last page and rear pastedown of the Devonshire Coast, No.1 sketchbook (Tate D40905–D40906).

In addition to the inscription including a date there are, as Powell noted, ‘numerous calculations’37 near the bottom edge of this sheet, somewhat left of centre. In the space leading on to the flat top of the riverside wall, the following figures appear, widely spaced, each to the right of the last and ascending vertically: ‘6 | [...] 1000 | 5000’ A little to the right again, rising diagonally, are apparently unrelated multiplications, side by side:

Both sets of figures appear hesitant, possibly overwriting or written over others or amended in places, and open to interpretation. Towards the bottom right comes ‘13’ over ‘16’, possibly among more extensive numbers, but they are even more difficult to make out. Turner’s sketchbooks often feature similarly makeshift notes, generally of a financial nature.

Technical notes:

The large sheet is rather rubbed and stained around its edges, possibly from prolonged handling and exposure in Turner’s studio. There is extensive, scattered greyish staining down the right-hand side, much of which shows through to or from the verso. Some or all of this is perhaps owing to the 1928 Tate Gallery flood, although it is possible that it happened while Turner was working on this version of the design, leaving it unviable as a finished work.

The paper historian Peter Bower has identified the support as a Super Royal-format sheet of white wove drawing paper, made by William Balston and John and Thomas Hollingsworth at Turkey Mill, Maidstone, Kent.1 He has speculated that it may have remained in the artist’s studio since his use of the same ‘1794 | J Whatman’ paper in relation to the 1801 tour of Scotland, including within the ‘Scottish Pencils’ grouping (Tate; Turner Bequest LVIII).2 The same paper also makes up a few sketchbooks3 of that period.4

Verso:

Blank. The grey, scattered staining noted on the recto is also evident here to the left, having passed one way or another through the sheet. There is a ruled pencil line towards the left, running from about halfway up the sheet to the top edge. A steep diagonal crease across the top-left corner has been flattened out, leaving a dark line; the fold is hardly evident at the corresponding top-right corner on the recto.