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

The setting is the Marktplatz in Bonn, looking south-east towards the Baroque Altes Rathaus, with its prominent coat of arms set between dormer windows with a clock below, and a ground-floor doorway in an arched alcove between flanking staircases. The focus of the scene is the Marktfontaine obelisk, with travellers or traders and large dogs beside a heavily laden cart; the gabled buildings on the right do not survive in this form.

The subject was indentified by Karl Heinz Stader, who characterised the figures as ‘eine Gruppe von Bauern mit einer Schubkarre, einem mit Säcken beladenen Gefährt und zwei Hunden, die als Zugtiere verwandt wurden’ (a group of farmers with a wheelbarrow, a vehicle loaded with sacks and two dogs, which were used as draft animals). On the last point, he noted: ‘Ältere Bonner warden sich daran erinnern können, daß noch in den Dreißiger Jahren Hunde beim Ziehen von Obst- und Gemüsekarren und den Wagen von Altwarenhändlern mithelfen mußten’ (older people in Bonn will remember that even back in the 1930s, dogs helped to draw fruit and vegetable carts and those of second-hand dealers).1

The subject has also been confirmed among those listed in broad terms by Cecilia Powell, as quoted in the technical notes below, in relation to a group of thirteen similar drawings mostly made along rural stretches of the Rhine; the river is a few minutes’ walk beyond the Rathaus. D33900 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 195), a similar sheet, shows nearby aspects of Bonn, and includes a small study perhaps showing a dog pulling a barrow guided by its master.

There are scattered drawings of the city from the river, associated with Turner’s earlier tours. See the 1817 Itinerary Rhine Tour and Waterloo and Rhine sketchbooks (Tate D12667, D12750, D12864, D12868–D12870; Turner Bequest CLIX 85a, CLX 26a, 83a, 85a, 86, 86a), the 1824 Rivers Meuse and Moselle book (D19841–D19842; CCXVI 145a, 146), the 1833 Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine book (D29663; CCXCVI 34), and the 1839 Cochem to Coblenz – Home book (D28624; CCXCI 45).

For the likely sequence of the Rhine subjects in this grouping and the wider context of the tour, see the Introduction to this subsection. The other side of this sheet, D33911 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 206), shows Rolandseck, Nonnenwerth and the Drachenfels, about ten miles upriver.

Technical notes:

The sheet carries the partial watermark ‘B E | 18’ at one edge. In discussing an 1840 River Mosel subject in this subsection (Tate D28998; Turner Bequest CCXCII 50), Cecilia Powell has noted that it ‘originally formed part of the same sheet as eight others of the same size which bear pencil drawings of the Rhine on both recto and verso. These include views of Bonn, the Godesburg, Rolandseck, the Drachenfels, Hammerstein and Burg Rheineck (TB CCCXLI 194–209 [Tate D33899–D33914, of which D33903, D33904 and D33906 are blank]). The sheet is watermarked BE&S / 1829.’1 Apparently indicating that they were still joined in 1909, Finberg noted the ‘following numbers, 194–209, form [sic] part of one large sheet folded into small sections.’2

Powell has noted the many sheets of grey 1829 Bally, Ellen and Steart paper used on Turner’s 1840 tour, neatly torn as eighths or sixteenths of the overall sheet, with dimensions of around 190 x 280 or 140 x 190 mm, and variously worked with pencil, watercolour and gouache; see the technical notes in the overall Introduction for others.3