Engraved by J. T. Willmore, I842, for Finden's Royal Gallery of British Art, in which prints of 'Lake Nemi' (B.M.1958-7-I2-444) and the 'Fighting Temeraire' also appeared (Rawlinson 660). The hot colour and extensive scraping-out of this drawing are characteristic of the flamboyant manner of Turner's finished watercolours at the end of the 1830s. It immediately precedes the softer, broader style of the late Swiss watercolours, which some of his regular patrons found unacceptable because of their extreme fluidity and atmospheric 'disintegration', a development clearly foreshadowed in the surface 'sparkle' of 'Oberwesel'. It is possible that Turner's almost excessive use of scattered lights at this period is a reflection of the late mannerism of Constable (d. 1837).

A number of pencil sketches of Oberwesel occur in the 'Trèves to Cochem' sketchbook of 1834 (T.B.CCXC, ff.76r etc.) and in the 'Brussels up to Mannheim' sketchbook of about 1840 (T.B.CCXCVI, f.62v etc.), but none seems to correspond with the subject of this watercolour.