Lot Essay
This is a view from the south-east with the Holtzturm in the centre, the Cathedral in the distance to the left, and to the right the steeple of the Church of St. Christopher, the twin towers of the Church of St. Peter, the Fischturm, the Church of the Carmelites and the pontoon bridge (Die Schiffbrüche) which was replaced in 1878.
This is one of the fifty-one watercolours of views on the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne purchased by Walter Fawkes for about #500 after Turner's first visit to Germany. Turner was on this picturesque stretch of the Rhine from 18 August until 31 August 1817 and reached Fawkes's home, Farnley Hall , Yorkshire, about two months later after a stay at Raby Castle in County Durham, where the watercolours were almost certainly executed on the basis of pencil sketches in Turner's Waterloo and Rhine sketchbook, in this case TB CLX - 68v al 69v; Turner was at Mainz on 26 and 27 August (the latest account of these watercolours in Powell, op.cit., pp. 32-4). The group is very varied in degree of detail and finish, this being one of the most particularised; an open scene of the river at Mainz (W.637, repr.) is in complete contrast, as is the scene of Mainz at Kastel (W.678, repr). In about 1833, as one of his illustrations to Sir Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon, Turner condensed the compostion, and he slightly changed the viewpoint, in a vignette (W.1110, repr.) engraved in 1834 by William Miller (see Powell, op.cit., p.116 no.28, repr.)
This is one of the fifty-one watercolours of views on the Rhine between Mainz and Cologne purchased by Walter Fawkes for about #500 after Turner's first visit to Germany. Turner was on this picturesque stretch of the Rhine from 18 August until 31 August 1817 and reached Fawkes's home, Farnley Hall , Yorkshire, about two months later after a stay at Raby Castle in County Durham, where the watercolours were almost certainly executed on the basis of pencil sketches in Turner's Waterloo and Rhine sketchbook, in this case TB CLX - 68v al 69v; Turner was at Mainz on 26 and 27 August (the latest account of these watercolours in Powell, op.cit., pp. 32-4). The group is very varied in degree of detail and finish, this being one of the most particularised; an open scene of the river at Mainz (W.637, repr.) is in complete contrast, as is the scene of Mainz at Kastel (W.678, repr). In about 1833, as one of his illustrations to Sir Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon, Turner condensed the compostion, and he slightly changed the viewpoint, in a vignette (W.1110, repr.) engraved in 1834 by William Miller (see Powell, op.cit., p.116 no.28, repr.)