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

Turner visited Donaustauf, on the north bank of the River Danube about five miles east of Regensburg in southern Germany, to see the Greek temple-style Walhalla monument (as tentatively identified by Finberg1), then nearing completion ahead of its opening in 1842. He made numerous complementary pencil drawings in the vicinity in the Venice, Passau to Würzburg book; see under Tate D31341 (Turner Bequest CCCX 33a) for further details.2 Here, the small town, with its ruined hilltop castle and parish church, are seen across the river on the left, with the pilgrimage church of St Salvator in the dip at the centre, and the Walhalla to the east above its tiered stone infrastructure, blocked in with gleaming chalk; compare Tate D31342, D31349, D31356, D31358, D31360 and D31362 (CCCX 34, 37a, 41, 42, 43, 44) in the sketchbook. The arrangement here would have informed the juxtaposition of the distant elements in the major oil painting of The Opening of the Wallhalla [sic], 1842 (Tate N00533),3 exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1843 and in Munich in 1845, where St Salvator’s tower is picked out in white against the hillside.

As discussed in the technical notes below, the present study is one of seven of Regensburg and the Walhalla (see also Tate D32185, D34081, D34084, D34093, D36150, D36153; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 6, CCCXLI 360, 363, 371, CCCLXIV 293, 296) which were initially eighths of a single sheet; D36151 (CCCLXIV 294) is a related view on similar paper. Of these, D34084 shows the interior of the Walhalla while D34093 is a similar landscape view, excluding the town. See also a watercolour study on conventional white paper (Tate D36174; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 316).

Technical notes:

There is some yellowish staining towards the right.

Among many such works on the blue or grey papers customarily used by Turner, this is one of seven originally from a single piece (subsequently scattered through Finberg’s 1909 Inventory, as listed above) to be identified by Cecilia Powell as showing subjects in and around Regensburg.1 They are from an 1829 sheet of the grey Bally, Ellen and Steart paper often used in 1840 (see the Introduction to the overall tour), and were temporarily reassembled for paper conservator Peter Bower’s 1999 Turner’s Later Papers exhibition, showing that their slightly irregular edges match exactly.2 This section includes part of the watermark; for the other half, see Tate D36150 (CCCLXIV 293).3

Four subjects were drawn on one side, and three on the other, only one face of each eighth being used, with a last section unaccounted for. Bower has noted Turner’s habit of tearing such sheets, sometimes in advance or sometimes after making a sequence of sketches, unfolding and refolding the intact sheet as necessary.4 The delicate white chalk highlights on several, and the lively gouache and watercolour on three (noted in individual entries), was likely added once the sheets were separated, as suggested particularly by the colour having been freely worked up to the torn edges, with no sign of overlapping brushwork or adventitious splashes across originally neighbouring areas.

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘CCCXLI 364 | BOX 101’ bottom right.