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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Rotterdam and Rhine sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Ruins of Burg Klopp from the River Rhine, with Bingen Downstream 1833

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Ruins of Burg Klopp from the River Rhine, with Bingen Downstream’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 12 Verso:
The Ruins of Burg Klopp from the River Rhine, with Bingen Downstream 1833
D32565
Turner Bequest CCCXXII 13a
Pencil on white laid paper, 105 x 170 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the ruined Burg Klopp, since heavily restored and now the seat of the local council, are seen above the south bank of the River Rhine, with the spires of St Martin’s Basilica in Bingen beyond, just downstream to the west. Compare Tate D29745 (Turner Bequest CCXCVI 76a), from the Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine sketchbook used on the outward leg of the present tour, D30645 (CCCIV 8) in the 1835 Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine book, and D30588 (CCCIII 66a) in 1840’s Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend.
The sailing boats to the left may have been moored off the castle, but the one shown under way towards the bottom right appears to be an incidental study. The sketch is effectively continuous with a horizontal view to the west, drawn the other way around on folio 13 recto opposite (D32566; CCCXXII 14), where the church spires are reprised on the left. There is another view of the town and castle on the verso of that leaf (D32567), seen to the south from further down the river.
As set out in its Introduction, this sketchbook covers Turner’s homeward route from Augsburg north-westwards to Rotterdam (see under folios 1 verso and 14 recto respectively; D32543, D32568; CCCXXII 2a, 15). Travelling back down the familiar river, he worked in somewhat randomly from both ends, interspersing identifiable subjects with less distinctive renderings of towns, castles and the landscape. For Rüdesheim, not far upstream on the opposite bank, see under folio 11 verso (D32563; CCCXXII 12a); the next identified subject is Burg Sooneck, about five or six miles down the Rhine to the north-west (folio 57 verso; D32652; CCCXXII 58a).
Apart from the sketches mentioned in direct relation to the present page, Bingen is shown in the 1817 Waterloo and Rhine and Rhine sketchbooks (respectively Tate D12830–D12831, D12833, D12835, D12840–D12841; Turner Bequest CLX 66a, 67, 68, 69, 71a, 72; D12944–D12949; CLXI 33a–36), 1833’s Brussels up to Mannheim – Rhine book (D29598, D29737, D29739–D29742, D29744; CCXCVI 2a, 72a, 73a–75, 76), the 1830s Rhine (between Cologne and Mayence) also Moselle and Aix-la-Chapelle book (D28754, D28757; CCXCI a 50a, 52), the 1835 Prague, Nuremberg, Frankfurt and Rhine book (D30644, D30647, D30650–D30651; CCCIV 7a, 9, 10a, 11), the 1839 Trèves to Cochem and Coblenz to Mayence book (D28493; CCXC 72), 1840’s Würzburg, Rhine and Ostend book (D30583, D30587; CCCIII 64, 66) and the 1844 Heidelberg sketchbook (D35239; CCCLII 19).
Turner made four watercolours of the vicinity in 1817: Rüdesheim, Looking towards the Binger Loch (National Museum Wales, Cardiff);1 The Binger Loch and Mäuseturm (private collection);2 Abbey at Bingen (private collection);3 and Bingen from the Nahe (British Museum, London).4 There is also a double-sided watercolour of about 1841, Burg Ehrenfels on the Rhine, Looking towards Bingen, with Burg Ehrenfels, Looking towards the Mäuseturm on the verso (Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro).5

Matthew Imms
November 2019

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.374 no.639, as ‘Rudesheim, Looking to Bingen Klopp’, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.378 no.679, as ‘Bingen Lorch and the Mausethurm’, reproduced.
3
Ibid., no.680.
4
Ibid., p.379 no.682, as ‘Bingen from the Lorch’, reproduced.
5
Not in Wilton 1979; Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.184–5 no.113, reproduced (both sides, recto in colour).

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Ruins of Burg Klopp from the River Rhine, with Bingen Downstream 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-ruins-of-burg-klopp-from-the-river-rhine-with-bingen-r1204031, accessed 22 July 2024.