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The composition is based on sketches Turner made while touring the Rhine in 1817 and again in 1825. Among the discernible structures are, from the foreground back: the Kostgassepforte gate before the Frankenturm; the sixteenth-century Bollwerk and the archway over the entrance to the Zollstrasse; the Stapelhaus; and the church of Gross St. Martin. Turner achieved the high-keyed color and transparency of watercolor painting in this monumental canvas, and it is possible that he did combine the media of oil and watercolor, as suggested in a letter in which he warned his father: “you must not by any means wet it, for all the colour will come off.” A questionable story associated with the painting was recorded by Ruskin, who described how Turner quixotically covered the golden sky with a wash of lampblack at the start of the Royal Academy exhibition of 1826 in order not to detract from two portraits by Lawrence that hung to either side of it. A contemporary reference to the painting’s “glitter and gaud” casts doubt on this anecdote.
Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996
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