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J. M. W. TURNER (1775-1851) COLOGNE: ARRIVAL OF A PACKET BOAT, EVENING Canvas 88 1/2 inches by 69 inches

THE Rhine, under the walls of Cologne, with the 'Treckschuyt' arriving and taking up its berth for landing the passengers. The river is placid, and scarce rippled by the slowly moving 'Treckschuyt' as she makes her way past the picturesque craft beside her. On the right are the walls, with a tower and spire breaking their line, and running up to a postern, backed by a taller tower. In the foreground, some balks of timber, and the spiderlike arms of a couple of those fishing-nets which tourists by the Rhine and Moselle know so well, reflected in the wet sand, and casting their evening shadows as well as their reflections. In the distance you catch a glimpse of the distant bridge of boats. The sky is being rapt through that rosy change which precedes the dying of twilight into dark. The sun is not seen in the picture, but a cloud lies between it and the spectator; and from behind this the broad-slanting rays strike on town and tower, and shoot down to the stream flinging on its unruffled face and on the rounded sides of the 'Treckschuyt' the shadows of intercepting edifices, while from the lighted water a glow strikes back into the cool violet shadows cast by wall and steeple, and fills them with reflected light."-Quoted by Philip Gilbert Hamerton.

This is the famous picture which Turner, at the Royal Academy in 1826, daubed with lamp-black so that its brilliant coloring should not dim two paintings by Lawrence which hung beside it. The incident is mentioned by Ruskin, Wyllie, Hamerton, Lucas, and other writers on British art.

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