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

Karl Heinz Stader has identified the somewhat fragmentary architectural studies here as showing aspects of Bonn: ‘Wenn auch nur angedeutet, so gibt die Skizze unverkennbar die Außenansicht des alten Sterntores vom ehemaligen Viehmarkt, dem heutigen Friedensplatz, wieder. Die zweite, kleinere Skizze auf diesem Feld bietet eine Teil der Uferfront mit Gertrudenkapelle festhält.’ (If only hinted at, the sketch unmistakably reflects the exterior view of the old Sterntor from the former cattle market, today’s Friedensplatz. The second, smaller sketch on this sheet shows part of the waterfront with the Gertrudenkapelle.)1

The arched Sterntor gateway was moved a little way south during improvements in 1898, and now forms a free-standing feature on Vivatsgasse,2 flanked by a square tower to its left and a round one to its right. Old photographs of the lost Gertrudenkapelle (or Gertrudiskapelle) near the Rhine show a more slender steeple than the one at the bottom right, which appears rather to be the one soaring over the crossing of the Minster (Bonner Münster), not far south-east of the Sterntor, with triangular gables at the base of the octagonal-section spire. There is a view of the city’s market place on a related sheet (Tate D33899; Turner Bequest CCCXLI 194), under which studies from earlier tours are noted. The dogs shown resting there were likely used to pull traders’ barrows, as discussed in the entry, and the slight study at the top left here (at first sight suggesting a man ploughing) possibly shows one at this work.

This sheet was 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 River Rhine. 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, D33912 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 207), shows the Drachenfels, about ten miles upriver from Bonn.

Technical notes:

There is a tear towards the top of the left-hand edge.

In discussing one of the 1840 River Mosel subjects 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