- Museum number
- 1958,0712.422
- Description
-
Marxburg; mountainous landscape with fortified building on one peak, in the foreground figures resting and another carrying a bundle of corn (?) on her head from a field beyond, trees in the foreground. 1820
Watercolour
- Production date
- 1820
- Dimensions
-
Height: 291 millimetres
-
Width: 458 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- Sloan 1998
Turner's first glimpse of the Marxburg had been from Pfaffendorf just south of Coblenz (1958,0712.412), where its distinctive shape appeared in the furthest distance on the left. The castle took its name from St Mark the Evangelist, and was famous for being the only castle on the Rhine never to have been captured or wrecked. Its good condition is manifest in this large finished watercolour, where it rises in the centre of the composition, the crowning glory of a rich and prosperous scene. The original watercolour on which this was based, painted for Walter Fawkes (W 653, Indianapolis Museum of Art), captured Turner's first proper view of the castle as recorded in his sketchbook (TB CLX 52), looking up at the impregnable fortress from the path below. This viewpoint was highly extolled and even illustrated in Gardnor's 1792 guidebook, which Turner had studied carefully before setting out on his tour.¹
In contrast to the companion view of Biebrich (1958,0712.420), where he brought everything forward in the finished work, here Turner added more foreground to the finished version and pushed the fluid central group of entwining trees further back, to frame and enhance the strong upward thrust of the crag on which the castle stood. Not only was this version larger and more detailed than the one in the original series, but like Biebrich it was painted on white paper which had not been prepared with grey wash, and the result was a brilliant luminosity of a type quite different from the sombre beauty of the earlier group. Detailed still-life vignettes of flowers and a panier-wheelbarrow laden with refreshments were added to the foreground to give the entire work the substance and content needed to compete with oil paintings on the walls where these works were intended to hang. Although at first sight there is little sign of the Rhine itself, we are not allowed to forget the presence of the river whose existence brings the wealthy harvest manifest on its banks; the streams which are its source flow down the slopes to the left of the castle, and the standing woman in the foreground points to a blue strip of the Rhine itself, a light mist rising to envelop the town of Braubach beside it.
1. Powell 1991, p. 29 (fig. 19).
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1828, Newcastle, no.71
1887, RA, no.59
1913, Agnew's, no.61
1934, RA, no.890 (769)
1959, 1960, BM
1966 Feb, BM, Turner Lloyd Bequest, no.16
1969 Feb, BM, Turner Lloyd Bequest, no.16
1975 BM, Turner in the BM, no.80
1985, BM, British Landscape Watercolours 1600-1860, no.89c
1998 May-Sept., BM, J.M.W.Turner: Lloyd Bequest, no.21
- Previous owner
-
Previous owner/ex-collection: Swinburne (Painted for a member of the Swinburne family; by descent to Miss Julia Swinburne by 1887. Her sale, Christie's 17.iii.1900/78, bt Vokins, £840.)
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Previous owner/ex-collection: J & W Vokins
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Previous owner/ex-collection: Thomas Agnew & Sons (Agnew's, 1910 (186), 1,600 gns, bt Charles Fairfax Murray.)
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Previous owner/ex-collection: Charles Fairfax Murray (sold by him through Agnew's, 1 April 1912, £886 10s. plus £60 10s. (commission) to Lloyd, April 1912 (stock 7692), £985)
- Acquisition date
- 1958
- Acquisition notes
- UNDER THE TERMS OF THE BEQUEST, NONE OF THE PRINTS OR DRAWINGS BEQUEATHED BY R. W. LLOYD MAY BE LENT OUTSIDE THE BRITISH MUSEUM (Registration Numbers 1958,0712.318 to 3149).
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1958,0712.422
