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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > The Route to Venice: The Rivers Mosel ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Burg Rolandseck on the River Rhine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Burg Rolandseck on the River Rhine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Burg Rolandseck on the River Rhine 1840
D33908
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 203
Pencil on grey wove paper, 147 x 192 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘203’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 203’ top left, upside down
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This slight sketch shows the ruins of Burg Rolandseck, with its distinctive Rolandsbogen arch on the skyline above the west bank of the River Rhine, looking upstream to the south. The subject 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.
The castle is seen in the context of the nearby Nonnenwerth Island and the Drachenfels hill, with its own ruins, on the opposite bank, in studies on two related sheets: D33907 and D33911 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 202, 206). For various drawings of Rolandseck from 1817 onwards, see under Tate D30500 (Turner Bequest CCCIII 22) in the 1840 Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend sketchbook, used on Turner’s return journey.
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, D33904 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 199), is blank.
Technical notes:
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

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Powell 1995, pp.150–1; see also Karl Heinz Stader, William Turner und der Rhein, Bonn 1981, p.43.
2
Finberg 1909, II, p.1073.
3
See also Powell 1995, p.145.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Burg Rolandseck on the River Rhine 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-burg-rolandseck-on-the-river-rhine-r1196422, accessed 24 November 2024.