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

Here Turner has recorded the ruins of a medieval Augustinian convent, the Kloster Stuben, located near the town of Bremm on the Moselle. Built in honour of St Nicholas, construction began in around 1137 within the grounds of an earlier monastery. At one time the Kloster housed plunder from the Fourth Crusade (1202–4): a piece of the Holy Cross, brought back to Germany by the knight Heinrich von Elm. In the late eighteenth century it was converted into a secular convent and finally, in the 1820s, the site was auctioned off for demolition, lying in ruin ever since.

For other 1824 drawings of the Kloster Stuben see Tate D19780–D19782, D20165; Turner Bequest CCXVI 115–16, CCXIX 4. See also the later Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence sketchbook of 1839 (Tate D28274–D28275; CCXC 12a–13).

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