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

This page was used both vertically (inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation) and horizontally for five sketches. As recognised by Finberg and Cecilia Powell,1 there are two views of Schloss Rosenau and its wooded setting about four miles north-east of Coburg. At the top the gabled castle is seen from the south, with the scale of its west turret slightly exaggerated. At right-angles along the outer edge is a view along down the River Itz with the building high up through the trees to the south-east. For the few views of Schloss Rosenau in this sketchbook and related works, see under folio 22 recto (D31318),2 a similar scene drawn from closer to the castle.

At the centre right, in heavier pencil, is the prospect down Rückertstrasse in Coburg, with the Baroque spire of St Moriz’s Church to the south-east beyond the Morizbrunnen fountain, as identified by Powell.3 The oriel turret in the foreground is at the south-east corner of Schloss Ehrenburg. For the numerous Coburg views in this sketchbook, see under folio 1 verso (D31278).4

The detail to the left appears to be the other way up, with one corner of a classical pediment and a slender turret or finial. There is a further drawing of buildings with a Baroque dome, likely that of a church,5 surmounted by a slender spire or cupola at the bottom right in the same heavy pencil as the Coburg view at the bottom right, which as yet remains unidentified; there may be the profile of a second dome below to the right.

The unrelated inscription at the bottom right, partly overlapping with the last drawing, appears to be ‘Kalenberg’, and presumably refers to Schloss Callenberg near Coburg, as seen on folios 10 verso and 62 recto (D31296, D31398).