Oberwesel

1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artist, British, 1775 - 1851

We look down onto a grass-topped promontory that gives way to a vast, hazy river valley in this horizontal watercolor. A dozen men, women, children, and babies rest in small groups or work near grapevines to our right on the promontory. They all have pale, peachy skin and wear garments in off white, royal blue, pink, beige, or gray. Rakes, barrels, cloth, and other equipment are piled to our left. The land dips steeply down beyond the pile to a slender, tall white tower. Opposite it, to our right, a grove of tall, spindly trees partially hides a brown stone, crenelated tower. The land drops steeply down from there to a deep, wide river valley. Flanking the waterway, mounded hills mottled with harvest yellow, laurel green, and pinkish-beige lighten to icy blue in the distance. Buildings tucked among the hills and ships on the river are suggested with indistinct strokes or scratches on the paper, and a few tufts of smoke rising from chimneys or smokestacks. The horizon comes two thirds of the way up the composition. A white glow across the center of the sky deepens to lapis blue at the edges.  The artist signed and dated the lower right corner, “JMWT 1840.”

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This transcendent view down the Rhine River from the hillside vineyards near Oberwesel, Germany, is a masterpiece by one of the great icons of British art, J. M.W. Turner. Executed in Turner's signature medium of watercolor, it encapsulates all the most admired qualities of the artist's works in that demanding technique. With its dazzling combination of light, color, and atmosphere, this piece not only marks the pinnacle of Turner's career as an artist but also bears eloquent witness to his stature as a supremely gifted and innovative watercolorist.

Turner traveled widely over the course of his career, both in England and abroad, filling sketchbooks with rapid pencil studies that later served as the inspiration for his watercolors. This view of Oberwesel, for example, was the direct result of a trip he made along the Rhine in 1839. Topographical accuracy was not his first concern here, for he repositioned such significant local monuments as the white Ochsturm (Ox Tower) at left and the Schönburg Castle in the middle distance at right to improve the composition, framing the sun-glazed view down the river in a manner intended to evoke the grand classical landscapes of Claude Lorrain (1604/1605–1682). Turner's transcription of nature is firmly rooted in reality, but his inimitable combination of radiant light and vaporous color imbues his vision of the river and the surrounding hills with an extraordinary sense of spirituality and cosmic grandeur. Enhancing that quality is the contrastingly more detailed and down-to-earth handling of the foreground, which is animated with figures and objects that could hardly be more ordinary. Even in those more mundane passages, however, Turner's handling is very fine; particularly beautiful is his deft use of scratching out to indicate the grapevines trailing down the hill at right.

From his many journeys and his extensive reading, Turner was steeped in historical and literary knowledge about the places he visited and drew. He must have been well aware, for example, that in 1813 field marshal Blücher led his Prussian troops across the Rhine below Oberwesel—at the distant spot that lies exactly in the center of Turner's composition—to drive Napoleon's army out of the Rhineland. That is one reason the artist may have chosen to populate the foreground of his composition with laborers and their families resting in the midday sun, thus contrasting their present tranquil existence with the ravages of war in the past. Turner also undoubtedly knew Lord Byron's many verses in praise of the Rhine in Canto III of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and it has been suggested that he was specifically inspired by verse 46 to include nursing mothers and babes-in-arms among the foreground figures: "Maternal Nature! For who teems like thee, / Thus on the banks of thy majestic Rhine?


Artwork overview

  • Medium

    watercolor and gouache over graphite with scratching-out

  • Credit Line

    Paul Mellon Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 35 x 53.1 cm (13 3/4 x 20 7/8 in.)

  • Accession

    2007.77.1


Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Benjamin Godfrey Windus, London (1790 - 1867); J. E. Fordham (by 1861); John Lee Clare, Liverpool; (his sale, Christie's London, 28 March 1868, no. 100); (Agnews, London, 28 March 1868 - 6 April 1868); William Quilter, Norwood; (his sale, Christie's London, 9 April 1875, no. 248); Vokins; Andrew G. Kurtz; (his sale, Christie's London, 11 May 1891, no. 195; McLean; Edward Steinkopff, London, by 1902; (his sale, Christie's London, 24 May 1935, no. 54); Mitchell; Mrs. Crabtree, Sutton Coldfield; (her sale, Christie's London 3 April 1936, no. 37); R. McConnell; Mrs. Stewart Mackenzie, Lady Seaforth; (sale, Christie's London, 6 June 1972, no. 145); (Leger, London); Dr. Marc Fitch [1908-1994] until 1988; (with Richard Green Ltd., London); Guy and Myriam Ullens, Belgium and Switzerland; (their sale, Sotheby's London, 4 July 2007, no. 11); purchased 2007 by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1873

  • Exhibition of the Works of the Old Masters. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 1873, no. 404.

1877

  • Winter Exhibition of Drawings by the Old Masters and Water-Colour Drawings by Deceased Artists of the British School, Grosvenor Gallery, London, 1877-1878, no. 258.

1878

  • Pictures and Objects in the Midland Counties Art Museum, The Castle, Nottingham, Nottingham Castle, 1878, no. 37.

1889

  • Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters...and a Collection of Water-Colour-Drawings by Joseph M. W. Turner, R. A. Winter Exhibition, Royal Academy, London, 1889, no. 6.

1899

  • Loan Collection of Pictures and Drawings by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, 1899, no. 39.

  • Loan Collection of Pictures and Drawings by J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and of a Selection of Pictures by Some of his Contemporaries, Corporation of London Art Gallery, 1899, no. 155.

1972

  • English Watercolors, Leger Galleries, London, 1972, no. 45.

1974

  • Turner, 1775 - 1851, Tate Gallery and Royal Academy of Arts, London, 1974, no. 583.

1988

  • The Fitch Collection, Leger Galleries, London, 1988, no. 45.1991

1991

  • Turner's Rivers of Europe: The Rhine, Meuse, and Mosel, Tate Gallery, London, and Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Ixelles, Brussels, 1991 - 1992, no. 30.

2000

  • Turner: The Great Watercolours, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2000, no. 101.

2008

  • Medieval to Modern: Recent Acquisitions of Drawings, Prints, and Illustrated Books, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2008, no. 101.

Bibliography

1846

  • Ruskin, John. Modern Painters. vol. I, 3rd ed. London, 1846: 135, 301.

1862

  • Thornbury, Walter. Life of Turner. 2 vols. London, 1862: 2: 398.

1936

  • Carter, A. C. R. "Forthcoming Sales." The Burlington Magazine 68 (1936): xv.

1972

  • Roberts, Keith. "Current and Forthcoming Exhibitions." The Burlington Magazine 114, no. 837 (December 1972): 884.

1975

  • Joll, Evelyn. "Review of The Turner Bicentenary Exhibition." Master Drawings 13 (1975): 51-52.

1979

  • Wilton, Andrew. The Life and Work of J. M. W. Turner. London, 1979: 464, no. 1380; 229, 230, 231.

1987

  • Wilton, Andrew. Turner in His Time. London, 1987: 242.

  • Wittingham, Selby. "The Turner Collector: Benjamin Godfrey Windus 1790 - 1867." Turner Studies 7 (1987): 29-35.

2007

  • Grasselli, Margaret Morgan. "Joseph Mallord William Turner, Oberwesel." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 37 (Fall 2007): 18-21, repro. (color).

  • Piggott, J.R. "Salerooms Report." Turner Society News, no. 107 (December 2007): 14-15 repro.

2012

  • Grasselli, Margaret Morgan, and Andrew Robison. Color, Line, Light: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastels from Delacroix to Signac. Exh. cat. Musée des impressionnismes Giverny and National Gallery of Art. Washington, 2012: 22, fig. 4 (color).

Inscriptions

lower right: JMWT 1840

Wikidata ID

Q64591298


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