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Lot Essay
Burg Eltz is unusual in having survived largely intact since medieval times, as well as remaining in the hands of members of the Eltz family. This fairytale castle, surmounting rocky ground around which the Elzbach meanders, is regarded as one of the most picturesque in Germany. Surrounding the castle on three sides, the Elzbach is a tributary of the Mosel and flows into that river at Moselkern, between Koblenz and Cochem.
Turner first sketched the accumulation of towers and turrets at Burg Eltz during his 1840 tour, on his way to Venice, accompanied at that stage by his solicitor-cousin Henry Harpur and his wife Eleanor (Powell 1995, pp.65, 151-2, nos.76-7; Turner Bequest CCXCII 8, 41). The presence of these companions perhaps explains his limited response, and his decision to restrict his sketching to an established viewing station high above the castle and the ruins of Trutz Eltz (also known as Baldeneltz).
He returned for a more thorough investigation of the setting and the castle’s architecture a couple of years later, in either 1841 or 1842. Using a sketchbook measuring roughly 7 x 9 inches (or 18 x 23 cm), possibly made up of paper created by Thomas Edmonds, he prepared most of the sheets he used at Burg Eltz with a grey wash, creating a neutral toned support as an approximation of the grey paper he had utilised there in 1840. Applying pen and coloured inks, he strengthened his pencil outlines to define the castle’s garrets and pitched roofs, as well as introducing bright highlights by scratching the paper surface.
The present drawing is one of two in the series of at least seven sheets that includes a rainbow, suggesting that Turner’s visit may have been interrupted by a summer shower. The related rainbow subject, now in a private collection, was part of an album of sketches owned by Lawrence W. Hodson (1863-1933), a successful brewer and patron of the Pre-Raphaelites, that was eventually sold in 1978 (Sotheby’s, London, 30 November 1978, lot 97). In a manuscript note, Hodson admitted to having compiled the album by breaking up existing sketchbooks in July 1884. The sketchbooks can very probably be traced back to Turner’s Margate landlady, Sophia Caroline Booth. In the absence of any other reliable early documentation for the Burg Eltz subjects, one of these sketchbooks seems likely to have been the source for the whole group. To confuse matters, Turner also painted a vignette of the castle for Elhanan Bicknell, which is now untraced, but its provenance during the 1860s and 70s has been erroneously assigned to a view of Burg Eltz from the west (Private collection; Wilton 1335). One of the earliest documented owners of the watercolour discussed here was Edward George Cundall, who worked at Agnew’s between 1888 and 1925, and wrote the invaluable book Fonthill Abbey. A Descriptive Account of five watercolour drawings by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. (1915; see K. Sloan, J.M.W. Turner. Watercolours from the R.W. Lloyd Bequest at the British Museum, London 1998, pp.16-17).
During Turner’s second visit to Burg Eltz he steadily circled the castle, appraising it from east to west. For five of the drawings, including this sheet, Turner adopted viewpoints in which he looked up at the castle walls. In the two other sketches the castle appears below the spectator: one of these is the rainbow scene mentioned above; the other was exhibited at the Cotswold Gallery in 1934 as ‘Schloss Eltz from the Baldeneltz’, and dated there to 1844 (more recently sold by Sotheby’s, New York, 21 November 1980, lot 91).
Curiously, Turner did not record a general prospect of the castle from the north, a view that has become a now-standard Instagram classic, with the bridge and gatehouse leading to the castle itself. However, he comes closest to doing so in this sketch, which appears to have been made inside the castle forecourt, near the Goldsmith’s House, with the Inner Castle Gate to the right, the towers of the Coach House down to the left, and the turrets, chimneys and oriel windows of the Rodendorf House rising up directly in front of him. Much more faintly, to the right, is the tower of the Outer Ward, its outline simply defined in pencil. The half-timbered upper walls of the Chapel have since been replaced, but the details as represented here more or less correspond with Clarkson Stanfield’s 1838 lithograph of the castle. Turner’s decision to focus so closely on the architecture is untypical in his later work, but is rooted in his adolescent training as a maker of Picturesque and topographical subjects. Coincidentally, this kind of study appealed especially to his defender John Ruskin (1819-1900), who imitated this approach and its style in the architectural studies he made in Switzerland in the later 1850s.
We are grateful to Ian Warrell for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
Turner first sketched the accumulation of towers and turrets at Burg Eltz during his 1840 tour, on his way to Venice, accompanied at that stage by his solicitor-cousin Henry Harpur and his wife Eleanor (Powell 1995, pp.65, 151-2, nos.76-7; Turner Bequest CCXCII 8, 41). The presence of these companions perhaps explains his limited response, and his decision to restrict his sketching to an established viewing station high above the castle and the ruins of Trutz Eltz (also known as Baldeneltz).
He returned for a more thorough investigation of the setting and the castle’s architecture a couple of years later, in either 1841 or 1842. Using a sketchbook measuring roughly 7 x 9 inches (or 18 x 23 cm), possibly made up of paper created by Thomas Edmonds, he prepared most of the sheets he used at Burg Eltz with a grey wash, creating a neutral toned support as an approximation of the grey paper he had utilised there in 1840. Applying pen and coloured inks, he strengthened his pencil outlines to define the castle’s garrets and pitched roofs, as well as introducing bright highlights by scratching the paper surface.
The present drawing is one of two in the series of at least seven sheets that includes a rainbow, suggesting that Turner’s visit may have been interrupted by a summer shower. The related rainbow subject, now in a private collection, was part of an album of sketches owned by Lawrence W. Hodson (1863-1933), a successful brewer and patron of the Pre-Raphaelites, that was eventually sold in 1978 (Sotheby’s, London, 30 November 1978, lot 97). In a manuscript note, Hodson admitted to having compiled the album by breaking up existing sketchbooks in July 1884. The sketchbooks can very probably be traced back to Turner’s Margate landlady, Sophia Caroline Booth. In the absence of any other reliable early documentation for the Burg Eltz subjects, one of these sketchbooks seems likely to have been the source for the whole group. To confuse matters, Turner also painted a vignette of the castle for Elhanan Bicknell, which is now untraced, but its provenance during the 1860s and 70s has been erroneously assigned to a view of Burg Eltz from the west (Private collection; Wilton 1335). One of the earliest documented owners of the watercolour discussed here was Edward George Cundall, who worked at Agnew’s between 1888 and 1925, and wrote the invaluable book Fonthill Abbey. A Descriptive Account of five watercolour drawings by J.M.W. Turner, R.A. (1915; see K. Sloan, J.M.W. Turner. Watercolours from the R.W. Lloyd Bequest at the British Museum, London 1998, pp.16-17).
During Turner’s second visit to Burg Eltz he steadily circled the castle, appraising it from east to west. For five of the drawings, including this sheet, Turner adopted viewpoints in which he looked up at the castle walls. In the two other sketches the castle appears below the spectator: one of these is the rainbow scene mentioned above; the other was exhibited at the Cotswold Gallery in 1934 as ‘Schloss Eltz from the Baldeneltz’, and dated there to 1844 (more recently sold by Sotheby’s, New York, 21 November 1980, lot 91).
Curiously, Turner did not record a general prospect of the castle from the north, a view that has become a now-standard Instagram classic, with the bridge and gatehouse leading to the castle itself. However, he comes closest to doing so in this sketch, which appears to have been made inside the castle forecourt, near the Goldsmith’s House, with the Inner Castle Gate to the right, the towers of the Coach House down to the left, and the turrets, chimneys and oriel windows of the Rodendorf House rising up directly in front of him. Much more faintly, to the right, is the tower of the Outer Ward, its outline simply defined in pencil. The half-timbered upper walls of the Chapel have since been replaced, but the details as represented here more or less correspond with Clarkson Stanfield’s 1838 lithograph of the castle. Turner’s decision to focus so closely on the architecture is untypical in his later work, but is rooted in his adolescent training as a maker of Picturesque and topographical subjects. Coincidentally, this kind of study appealed especially to his defender John Ruskin (1819-1900), who imitated this approach and its style in the architectural studies he made in Switzerland in the later 1850s.
We are grateful to Ian Warrell for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.