'Geneva from the Quai du Mont Blanc', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Geneva from the Quai du Mont Blanc

From France, Savoy, Piedmont Sketchbook

Turner Bequest LXXIII

Date 1802

MediumGraphite and watercolour on paper

Dimensionssupport: 138 x 215 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D04427

Turner Bequest LXXIII 35

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 35 Recto:

Geneva from the Quai du Mont Blanc 1802

D04427
Turner Bequest LXXIII 35

Pencil, with trials of blue, yellow and pink watercolour, on grey-buff laid paper, 138 x 215 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXIII 35’ bottom left, descending vertically

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

For Geneva see especially folio 5 of this sketchbook (D04397), and also folios 39–42 (D04433–D04438). Here, the city with the cathedral of St Pierre is seen at right and Mont Salève in the distance, from a position looking south from the Quai du Mont Blanc. This view of Geneva and the lakeside activity suggested the foreground of the finished watercolour Turner made for Walter Fawkes (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut).1 The trials of blue, yellow and pink watercolour at lower left must have been made as he worked on it with the sketchbook alongside. The sketch on folio 5 was used for the background of the Fawkes watercolour and also has colour trials. This combination of his on-the-spot sketches enabled Turner to develop a composition that set the city beside a larger expanse of water than could really be seen from the Quai. Another version of the finished subject is in the Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad.2

David Blayney Brown
June 2004

Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.342 no.370 reproduced.

Ibid., p.343 no.382.

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.