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 ... > Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Boppard, on the River Rhine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Boppard, on the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 43 Recto:
Boppard, on the River Rhine 1840
D30540
Turner Bequest CCCIII 42
Pencil on flecked pale blue laid paper, 104 x 170 mm
Partial watermark (countermark): indecipherable maker’s name
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘42’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCIII – 42’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. As identified by Cecilia Powell,1 it shows Boppard, on the west bank of the River Rhine, looking south from a reach running west-east; at the centre there seem to be slight indications of the twin spires of St Severus’s Church.
Powell has noted that Turner neared the end of this tour following ‘the familiar route of the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne. He almost certainly travelled by steamer, ... sketching most of the well-known sights perfunctorily as he passed.’2 Given that this sketchbook was used in reverse of its subsequent foliation, she has specified the overall range of this phase as ‘TB CCCIII 68v–20v; 11r’,3 indicating folios 12 recto and 21 verso–69 verso (D30479, D30497–D30592; Turner Bequest CCCIII 20a–68a); see this book’s Introduction for the full itinerary of this part of the journey.
For other views of Boppard, see the 1817 Waterloo and Rhine and Rhine sketchbooks (respectively Tate D12813–D12814, D12883; Turner Bequest CLX 58, 58a, 93a; D12916–D12917, D12967–D12968, D12971–D12972; CLXI 20a, 21, 45a, 46, 47a, 48), the 1833 Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine sketchbook (D29706–D29707; CCXCVI 57, 57a), the 1839 Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence sketchbook (D28516; CCXC 82b), and the 1844 Ostend, Rhine and Berne sketchbook (D33066; CCCXXVII 15a).
Turner’s 1817 watercolour Boppart (sic, in the alternative old spelling) is at the Yale Center for British Art, New Haven.4 A colour study, likely for an unexecuted variant, dates from about 1819–20 (Tate D25382; Turner Bequest CCLXIII 259).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, p.246.
2
Ibid., p.72.
3
Ibid., p.82 note 70.
4
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, pp.375–6 no.652, reproduced.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Boppard, on the River Rhine 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-boppard-on-the-river-rhine-r1196297, accessed 15 January 2025.