'Bonneville; Bridge over the River Arve', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Bonneville; Bridge over the River Arve

From France, Savoy, Piedmont Sketchbook

Turner Bequest LXXIII

Date 1802

MediumGraphite and chalk on paper

Dimensionssupport: 138 x 215 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D04443

Turner Bequest LXXIII 48

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Turner's sketchbooks

View this artwork in the France, Savoy, Piedmont Sketchbook

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Folio 48 Recto:

Bonneville; Bridge over the River Arve 1802

D04443
Turner Bequest LXXIII 48

Pencil, lightly touched with white chalk on grey-buff laid paper, 138 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Villeneuve before Bonvil’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXIII 48’ bottom left, descending vertically

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

For Bonneville see especially folio 46 in this sketchbook (D04440), and also folio 47 (D04442). Turner’s view here is the same as in one of the two drawings of Bonneville in his larger St Gothard and Mont Blanc sketchbook (Tate D04599; Turner Bequest LXXV 7), and repeated in the picture exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 (Dallas Museum of Fine Art).1 Turner’s inscription was presumably added later from memory, and must refer to the Villeneuve near Geneva rather than that in the Val d’Aosta which he also visited in 1802 but is a long way from Bonneville. David Hill, in correspondence with the author,2 has suggested an alternative reading of ‘V’ [that is, Vers or towards] but the inscription clearly reads ‘Villeneuve’.

Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.35–6 no.46 (pl.56).

Letter to David Blayney Brown, 4 April 2004, Tate catalogue files.

Verso:

Blank

David Blayney Brown
June 2004

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.