Joseph Mallord William Turner Güls on the Mosel c.1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Güls on the Mosel c.1839
D24634
Turner Bequest CCLIX 69
Turner Bequest CCLIX 69
Gouache and watercolour on paper, 137 x 191 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX–69’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLIX–69’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1869
First Loan Collection selected from the Turner Bequest, various venues and dates, 1869–1931 (no catalogue but numbered 112a, as ‘Two Views on the Seine’).
1922
Original Drawings in Watercolour, Etc., by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., T. Girtin and E. Dayes. Lent by the Trustees of the National Gallery, Laing Art Gallery and Museum, Newcastle 1922 (25, as one of Two Views on the Seine).
1938
La Peinture anglaise: XVIIIe & XIXe siècles, Louvre, Paris, February–August 1938 (243(a) and British Museum Frame Number 4: River Landscape).
1965
[Display of watercolours from the Turner Bequest] , Tate Gallery, London, ?–?March 1965 (no catalogue).
1972
J.M.W. Turner: Gemälde Aquarelle, Nationalgalerie Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin, September–November 1972 (85).
1973
Turner {1775 / 1851}: desenhos, aguarelas e óleos / Drawings, Watercolours and Oil Paintings, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon, June–July 1973 (33, reproduced).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (163, reproduced as Sunset on the Seine: ?Jumièges).
1981
Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris, October 1981–January 1982 (123, reproduced).
1999
Turner on the Seine, Tate Gallery, London, June–October 1999, Pavillon des Arts, Paris, October 1999–January 2000, Musée Malraux, Le Havre, March–June 2000 (92, reproduced in colour, fig.129).
2004
Turner and Williamson / In the Haze: Watercolours by Turner and Williamson, Clore Gallery, Tate Britain, January–May 2004, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, June–August 2004 (no catalogue).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.792, as ‘View on the Seine’.
1973
Norman Reid, Andrew Wilton and Luke Herrmann, Turner {1775 / 1851}: desenhos, aguarelas e óleos / Drawings, Watercolours and Oil Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Lisbon 1973, p.27.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.104 no.163.
1981
Maurice Guillaud, Nicholas Alfrey, Andrew Wilton et al., Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, exhibition catalogue, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris 1981, p.431 no.123 reproduced.
1991
Ian Warrell, ‘R.N. Wornum and the First Three Loan Collections: A History of the Early Display of the Turner Bequest Outside London’, Turner Studies, vol.11, no.1, Summer 1991, p.41 no.112a, as ‘Two Views on the Seine’.
1999
Ian Warrell, Turner on the Seine, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, no.92, pp.156–7 fig.129, 158 note 86 [p.260].
1999
Cecilia Powell, ‘From Seine to Mosel: A Gouache reidentified’, Turner Society News, no.83, December 1999, pp.4–5, p.4, reproduced.
The subject matter of this striking gouache was, for many years, only tentatively identified. Its size and production on blue paper led Finberg to catalogue the drawing as a ‘View on the Seine’ connected to the Rivers of France project: a series of three volumes illustrating the Seine and Loire (published 1833–5).1 Finberg did stipulate, however, that the drawings were not all identified and were only loosely grouped together. He writes that ‘some Belgian subjects may have also been included, and there may possibly be some Rhine and even English subjects amongst them’.2 For decades, Finberg’s preliminary attribution remained unquestioned.
Turner scholar Andrew Wilton concurred with Finberg, writing, in 1975, that this drawing did indeed show the Seine. Wilton further suggested that the view was taken from a meander of that river at Jumièges, a village situated west of Rouen in the Haute-Normandie department. This judgement derived from the drawing’s compositional similarity to sketches and a watercolour of Jumièges of c.1832, produced for Turner’s Annual Tour, Wanderings by the Seine of 1834 (Tate D24696; Turner Bequest CCLIX 131 and related sketches).3
When this drawing appeared in the 1981 exhibition Turner en France, however, it was simply titled a ‘River Scene’ because of its indistinctness and the questions over its subject matter. Nicholas Alfrey, who contributed an essay to the exhibition catalogue, writes that ‘the two vertical masses against the light’ are actually ‘intended to represent trees or towers’, and ‘they do not correspond closely with any of the pencil studies Turner made of Jumièges’.4 In addition, Alfrey writes that ‘the composition in its simplicity seems quite untypical of those favoured by Turner for his Seine views’.5 Despite Alfrey’s caveat, the art historian Ian Warrell maintained Wilton’s attribution, cataloguing the gouache as ‘The Towers of an Abbey at Sunset: ?Jumièges’.6
The caution of Finberg, Wilton, Alfrey and Warrell proved to be justified when, in December 1999, Cecilia Powell demonstrated that this gouache shows Güls, a town on the west bank of the Moselle near Koblenz.7 Powell writes that:
Turner’s on-the-spot sketches in the Cochem to Coblenz – Home sketchbook [see Tate D28597, D28598, D28600, D28602; Turner Bequest CCXCI 31a, 32, 33, 34] include all the important features of [this] subsequent gouache: the low hills on the left with diagonal hatching to evoke their gentle slope (33r, 34r); the islet on the left covered with grass or bushes (33r); and – most importantly – the tall and elegant spires of the new Catholic parish church (31v, 32r, 34r)’.8
The ‘two vertical masses’ described by Alfrey above, then, do indeed represent specific architectural forms: they are the spires of the Church of Saint-Servatius, built by the architect J.C. Lassaulx between 1833 and 1840.
Daubs of brilliant vermillion watercolour render the form of Saint-Servatius, and the same pigment, interspersed with golden yellow, is applied in loose streaks to evoke wispy cirrus cloud. The greenery at either side of the town may represent the ‘plantations of cherry trees’ and ‘walnuts’ which, according to travel writer Michael Joseph Quin, abounded at Güls at the time of Turner’s visit.9 As with most of the other 1839 gouaches, Turner has left the foreground unpainted to suggest the still crystalline surface of the Moselle (see, for example, Tate D20237, D24588, D24723; Turner Bequest CCXXI D, CCLIX 23, 158). In mood and in colouring this work is similar to Turner’s gouache Distant View of Coblenz and Ehrenbreitstein (Tate D20261; Turner Bequest CCXXII B).
Technical notes:
There has been some fading and discolouration of the pigment and support due to exposure to sunlight following the picture’s exhibition.
Alice Rylance-Watson
September 2013
How to cite
Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Güls on the Mosel c.1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www