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

This view was identified by Cecilia Powell as showing ‘the church of the Dreifaltigkeit [Holy Trinity] with the cemetery arch on the left’,1 on the slopes of the Dreifaltigkeitsberg overlooking Regensburg in southern Germany. In the distance to the south are the medieval towers of the city, including the shaded bulk of the cathedral (before the addition of its slender spires). The west end of the Dreifaltigkeitkirche is shown towards the left, aligned with its single spire; the church was later significantly extended in this direction with a larger nave flanked by two similar spires, but trees around it now preclude a clear view. The River Regen flows south in the middle distance to the confluence with the Danube, which continues its course eastwards towards the horizon.

Turner made numerous pencil drawings around Regensburg in the contemporary Venice, Passau to Würzburg book; see under Tate D31311 (Turner Bequest CCCX 18a). Of these, D31352 (CCCX 39) is a loose sketch of the scene from immediately outside the church.

As discussed in the technical notes below, the present study is one of seven of Regensburg and the nearby Walhalla at Donaustauf (see also Tate D32185, D34084–D34085, D34093, D36150, D36153; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 6, CCCXLI 363, 364, 371, CCCLXIV 293, 296) which were initially eighths of a single sheet; D36151 (CCCLXIV 294) is a related view on similar paper. D36153 is a view from the cemetery, developing the view over the valley in more detail with watercolour and gouache beneath a glowing sunrise sky. The inconspicuous touch of white above the spire in the present sheet may show that Turner thought of treating the present variant in a similar way.

Technical notes:

Among many such works on the blue or grey papers customarily used by Turner, this is one of seven originally from a single piece (subsequently scattered through Finberg’s 1909 Inventory, as listed above) to be identified by Cecilia Powell as showing subjects in and around Regensburg.1 They are from an 1829 sheet of the grey Bally, Ellen and Steart paper often used in 1840 (see the Introduction to the overall tour), and were temporarily reassembled for paper conservator Peter Bower’s 1999 Turner’s Later Papers exhibition, showing that their slightly irregular edges match exactly.2

Four subjects were drawn on one side, and three on the other, only one face of each eighth being used, with a last section unaccounted for. Bower has noted Turner’s habit of tearing such sheets, sometimes in advance or sometimes after making a sequence of sketches, unfolding and refolding the intact sheet as necessary.3 The delicate white chalk highlights on several, and the lively gouache and watercolour on three (noted in individual entries), was likely added once the sheets were separated, as suggested particularly by the colour having been freely worked up to the torn edges, with no sign of overlapping brushwork or adventitious splashes across originally neighbouring areas.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed by ?Turner in pencil ‘4 R’ bottom right, upside down; inscribed in pencil ‘150 ?’ and ‘360’ centre, upside down.