The Roman Tower, Andernach

The Roman Tower at Andernach, painted in 1817 during Turner's first post-Napoleonic Rhine tour, records one of the most distinctive ancient monuments on the river — a Roman defensive tower from the city of Antunnacum, built in the late Roman period and surviving into the nineteenth century as a physical witness to two thousand years of continuous habitation on the Rhine. Turner's 1817 Rhine journey was his first extended Continental tour after a decade in which the Napoleonic Wars had made travel in France and the German states effectively impossible for British artists. The Rhine valley, with its concentration of medieval castles, Roman ruins, and Romantic landscape, was a revelation: he produced fifty watercolours in a sustained burst of observation that resulted in the Rhine series of prints and several exhibition oils. The small scale of this oil — 20 by 28 centimetres — is characteristic of the more intimate views he made alongside the larger panoramic Rhine subjects, recording specific architectural details with topographical precision within a broadly atmospheric landscape.

Turner renders the Rhine tower and its riverside setting with warm, atmospheric light, using reflections on the river to create a composition of serene, luminous beauty.