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Lot Essay
In the late summer of 1817 Turner undertook his second significant European tour, focusing initially on the scarred battlefield at Waterloo before pressing eastwards to Cologne, from where he surveyed the scenery bordering the Rhine as far up as Mainz. He concluded his route with a whistle-stop dash through the Netherlands.
Despite the brevity of his time abroad, the trip yielded substantial and significant results. Most notably he produced a set of fifty views of the Rhine, even before he completed the two major oils he sent to the Royal Academy in 1818: The Field of Waterloo (Tate) and Dort, or Dordrecht (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). As watercolours, these were rather unconventional in their appearance, sometimes sketchy and unresolved, and generally painted on sheets prepared with a grey wash. Rather than being dispersed, along the lines of other topographical projects, the whole group was quickly acquired by Turner’s most loyal patron, the Yorkshire landowner, Walter Fawkes (1769-1825). The Rhine studies afterwards remained at Farnley Hall as an entity until a sale of over half of them at Christie’s in 1890. Since then they have been avidly sought by museums around the world: of the 50 only 14 are still in private hands.
One of these is an appealing panoramic view of Cologne from the river, the image framed on the left by the Bayenturm. From there the viewer looks down the Rhine to the cathedral and other landmarks of the city spread out along the riverbank (Wilton 1979, no.670); see Susan Grace Galassi, Ian Warrell and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein (ed.), Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports. Passages through Time, The Frick Collection, NY, in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2017, p.99, fig.92). It has been suggested that Turner shaped his composition through his recollections of an aquatint of Cologne produced a decade earlier by William Daniell Jnr, after a design by Sir John Carr (see Powell 1991, p.110, repr.)
In the years after his 1817 tour, Turner repeated several of his Rhine subjects, either for specific patrons, or as part of his planned collaboration with the publisher William Bernard Cooke for a set of 36 Rhine views, which never came to fruition because of competition from the English edition of an existing German collection of images (Powell 1995, p.28, fig.13). Among those subjects Turner revisited it is notable that the view of Cologne was evidently particularly successful with his admirers, resulting in two commissioned watercolours between 1818 and 1820. The present work is the earlier of the two and appears to have been produced around 1819 for James Rivington Wheeler (1758-1834), who agreed to pay 30 guineas (over £20 more than Fawkes had paid for the less resolved watercolour of Cologne in 1817). Wheeler was a lawyer based in Godliman Street, with a home at 26 Gloucester Place, to the east of Montagu Square, that he filled with his collection of pictures. He was described as ‘a gentleman who possesses some of the finest specimens of the modern school in every department of water colour painting’ (see E. Yardley (op.cit.,p.53), who established the early history of this work). Cologne from the River appears to have been his first acquisition of a Turner, but he subsequently acquired a further five watercolours. After Wheeler’s death, but before Cologne left the family collection in 1864, a faithful copy of the image was made by Paul Eduoard Rischgitz (1828-1909).
Turner’s second, somewhat larger version of the view was apparently created for Thomas Tomkinson (possibly the piano-maker Thomas Tomkinson; Seattle Art Museum (Wilton 1979, no.690); see Galassi et al., Op.cit., p.100, fig.93). Whereas the present watercolour appears to have been produced in isolation, since it does not conform to the standard dimensions of any other Rhine views, the Seattle watercolour, which is dated ‘1820’, is roughly the same size as three other larger format repetitions (see Wilton 1979, nos.691-3). Significantly, there is a freshness of invention in the earlier of the two Cologne images, and a delicacy in the realisation of the late afternoon sunlight as it strikes and defines the medieval buildings. Less is more here. There are fewer boats disturbing the stillness of the water, as well as fewer bathers on and around the rafts.
In Cologne from the River, one of these figures is still in his soldier’s uniform: presumably this was a continuing reality, and not just an allusion to the recent military conflicts, since Turner featured troops marching beside the Rhine in some of the 1817 watercolours. Such details and the generally harmonious mood vividly bring the city to life, justifying the claims made when the watercolour was sold at Foster’s in 1896. The sale catalogue boasted that Turner had ‘frequently informed the late Mr Wheeler that “he prided himself more upon that little drawing than upon any other of his work”.’
We are grateful to Ian Warrell for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.
Despite the brevity of his time abroad, the trip yielded substantial and significant results. Most notably he produced a set of fifty views of the Rhine, even before he completed the two major oils he sent to the Royal Academy in 1818: The Field of Waterloo (Tate) and Dort, or Dordrecht (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). As watercolours, these were rather unconventional in their appearance, sometimes sketchy and unresolved, and generally painted on sheets prepared with a grey wash. Rather than being dispersed, along the lines of other topographical projects, the whole group was quickly acquired by Turner’s most loyal patron, the Yorkshire landowner, Walter Fawkes (1769-1825). The Rhine studies afterwards remained at Farnley Hall as an entity until a sale of over half of them at Christie’s in 1890. Since then they have been avidly sought by museums around the world: of the 50 only 14 are still in private hands.
One of these is an appealing panoramic view of Cologne from the river, the image framed on the left by the Bayenturm. From there the viewer looks down the Rhine to the cathedral and other landmarks of the city spread out along the riverbank (Wilton 1979, no.670); see Susan Grace Galassi, Ian Warrell and Joanna Sheers Seidenstein (ed.), Turner’s Modern and Ancient Ports. Passages through Time, The Frick Collection, NY, in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2017, p.99, fig.92). It has been suggested that Turner shaped his composition through his recollections of an aquatint of Cologne produced a decade earlier by William Daniell Jnr, after a design by Sir John Carr (see Powell 1991, p.110, repr.)
In the years after his 1817 tour, Turner repeated several of his Rhine subjects, either for specific patrons, or as part of his planned collaboration with the publisher William Bernard Cooke for a set of 36 Rhine views, which never came to fruition because of competition from the English edition of an existing German collection of images (Powell 1995, p.28, fig.13). Among those subjects Turner revisited it is notable that the view of Cologne was evidently particularly successful with his admirers, resulting in two commissioned watercolours between 1818 and 1820. The present work is the earlier of the two and appears to have been produced around 1819 for James Rivington Wheeler (1758-1834), who agreed to pay 30 guineas (over £20 more than Fawkes had paid for the less resolved watercolour of Cologne in 1817). Wheeler was a lawyer based in Godliman Street, with a home at 26 Gloucester Place, to the east of Montagu Square, that he filled with his collection of pictures. He was described as ‘a gentleman who possesses some of the finest specimens of the modern school in every department of water colour painting’ (see E. Yardley (op.cit.,p.53), who established the early history of this work). Cologne from the River appears to have been his first acquisition of a Turner, but he subsequently acquired a further five watercolours. After Wheeler’s death, but before Cologne left the family collection in 1864, a faithful copy of the image was made by Paul Eduoard Rischgitz (1828-1909).
Turner’s second, somewhat larger version of the view was apparently created for Thomas Tomkinson (possibly the piano-maker Thomas Tomkinson; Seattle Art Museum (Wilton 1979, no.690); see Galassi et al., Op.cit., p.100, fig.93). Whereas the present watercolour appears to have been produced in isolation, since it does not conform to the standard dimensions of any other Rhine views, the Seattle watercolour, which is dated ‘1820’, is roughly the same size as three other larger format repetitions (see Wilton 1979, nos.691-3). Significantly, there is a freshness of invention in the earlier of the two Cologne images, and a delicacy in the realisation of the late afternoon sunlight as it strikes and defines the medieval buildings. Less is more here. There are fewer boats disturbing the stillness of the water, as well as fewer bathers on and around the rafts.
In Cologne from the River, one of these figures is still in his soldier’s uniform: presumably this was a continuing reality, and not just an allusion to the recent military conflicts, since Turner featured troops marching beside the Rhine in some of the 1817 watercolours. Such details and the generally harmonious mood vividly bring the city to life, justifying the claims made when the watercolour was sold at Foster’s in 1896. The sale catalogue boasted that Turner had ‘frequently informed the late Mr Wheeler that “he prided himself more upon that little drawing than upon any other of his work”.’
We are grateful to Ian Warrell for his help in preparing this catalogue entry.