Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775–1851)
A View of Boppart, with Figures on the River Bank, 1817
Watercolor, gouache, black chalk, and scratching out on paper
7 7/8 x 12 1/2 in. (20 x 31.8 cm)
Yale Center for British Art; Paul Mellon Collection
Townspeople go about their everyday tasks on the banks outside the gates of this small town located on the Rhine, upriver from Cologne. Details such as a daydreaming man smoking his pipe stand out amid the bustle of activity. This sheet was part of the series of fifty-one watercolors depicting towns and monuments along the Rhine that Turner painted for his patron and friend Walter Fawkes after returning from his first trip to the Rhineland in 1817.