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

This is the second of four pages of notes Turner took from the ‘Third Excursion’ section of Alois Wilhelm Schreiber’s The Traveller’s Guide down the Rhine (see also Tate D19563, D19565–D19566; Turner Bequest CCXVI 6a, 7a–8). The manuscript notes on these pages list the names of towns and the distances between them, sites of historical interest, antiquities, picture collections, inns and travel information for the journey between ‘Coblentz to Trêves’ when travelling ‘the course of the Moselle’.1 Turner’s use of Schreiber’s guidebook, published in English in 1818, is discussed in the general Introduction to this tour.

The artist’s notes are transcribed thus:

The journey along the Moselle from Alken and Burg Bischofstein brought the traveller to the villages of Rhom and Burgen, ‘where there is a nursery and a quarry of ragstones’.2 On the right bank, at the village of Kern, the ‘torrent of the Elz’ joins the Moselle and flows towards the market town of the same name; there, also, is castle of Elz, besieged by ‘Bishop Baldwin’ in 1391.3 One league’s distance from this place are ‘the ruins of the castle of Pyrmont’ and a picturesque view of the River Elz in cascade.4 From here, the traveller takes the road to Carden, a market town and ‘formerly an archdeaconship with a collegiate church and a castle’.5 Here, Turner takes note of Schreiber’s recommendation to see the ‘very interesting pictures of the old German school’, belonging to the ‘ci-devant mayor, M. Sonntag’.6 On the opposite bank to Carden, ‘on the point of a very high rock’, is the ‘hermitage of Zillesberg’, whilst its neighbours are the townships of Tries and Pommern ‘where an excellent red wine is made’.7 Close by, ‘at the top of a mountain’ appear ‘the traces of an ancient Roman camp’, and ‘a league beyond it’ in the ‘interior of the country’ stands the ‘ancient convent of Rosenthal, in a very wild but picturesque situation’.8

Following the course of the Moselle, the traveller proceeds to Klotten, with the ruins of the medieval Klottenbourg Castle in view. From Klotten, the next town is ‘Kochem’ (Cochem), where Schreiber writes that the local inns there are ‘The Anchor’ and the ‘Roman King’.9 An excursion can be made from Cochem ‘three leagues’ in distance to the ‘baths of Bertrich’, where a hermit of that name was reputed to have established residence on the site of a hot springs.10 Schreiber writes that the baths had lain in a ‘bad state’ until their renovation in 1760, enabling locals and visitors to enjoy ‘fourteen’ new bathing rooms plumbed with pipes containing spring water at a balmy ‘twenty-four degrees’.11

The next town on Schreiber’s itinerary was Beilstein, presided over by a castle belonging to the ‘Counts (now Princes) of Metternich-Winneburg’.12 In the town itself has ‘a convent of Carmelites’ and within it, ‘a curious prison for confining the monks’.13 The ruins of another convent, the Marienbourg, lie close to Beilstein. This nunnery, ‘situated on a steep rock, and defended by towers, ditches and drawbridges’ was secularised and converted into a fort in 1514 by Archbishop Baldwin.14

The Moselle then ‘forms an immense bend’, which Schreiber warns the traveller ‘better not follow’, recommending the road to Zell instead; the land is fertile here, abundant in ‘corn’, ‘wine, fruits, and flax’.15 In terms of accommodation, Schreiber advises that the best inn at Zell is ‘that kept by M. Koch’, a point duly recorded by Turner.16 This page concludes with a note on the village of Enkirchen and Starkenbourg, a town overlooked by the vestiges of an old castle which was ‘formerly the residence of the Counts of Sponheim-Starkenbourg, but is now only a heap of ruins’.17 Finally, the vista and environs of the Stephansberg (Mount St Stephen) is recommended, not least for the ‘excellent wine’ produced there.18