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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > The Second Meuse-Moselle Tour 1839 > Cochem to Coblenz - Home Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of Burg Bischofstein from Moselkern 1839

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Burg Bischofstein from Moselkern’ 1839
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Verso:
Distant View of Burg Bischofstein from Moselkern 1839
D28562
Turner Bequest CCXCI 13 a
Pencil on cream laid writing paper, 100 x 156 mm
Watermarked with French imperial eagle
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In this slight and swiftly rendered sketch, Turner depicts the castle of Bischofstein, which, as Quin writes, shows ‘itself... from a considerable distance’ as the traveller sails towards it on the Mosel.1 The Burg presides over the valley from Moselkern opposite the town of Burgen. Identifiable by its tall cylindrical donjon tower and adjoining ruined chapel, Bischofstein was constructed in the late twelfth century and expanded in 1273 as a stronghold for the Archbishops of Trier. 2 It was later destroyed by the troops of Louis XIV of France during the Nine Years’ War. 3

Alice Rylance-Watson
August 2013

1
Michael Joseph Quin, Steam voyages on the Seine, the Moselle, & the Rhine, London 1843, p.57.
2
‘Bischofstein’, Burgendatenbank des Europäischen Burgeninstitutes, Burgen an Rhein und Donau, http://www.ms-visucom.de/cgi-bin/ebidat.pl?id=135, accessed 9 August 2013.
3
Ibid.

How to cite

Alice Rylance-Watson, ‘Distant View of Burg Bischofstein from Moselkern 1839 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-distant-view-of-burg-bischofstein-from-moselkern-r1150846, accessed 21 November 2024.