'Martigny: The Castle of La Bâtiaz, from the South', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Martigny: The Castle of La Bâtiaz, from the South

From Fribourg, Lausanne and Geneva Sketchbook

Turner Bequest CCCXXXII

Date 1841

MediumGraphite, watercolour and pen on paper

Dimensionssupport: 229 x 291 mm

Collection

Tate

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

Reference

D33493

Turner Bequest CCCXXXII 23

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

Display caption

Ruskin expressed some reservations about his identification of this view as Martigny: 'the pencil marks in the ruin are not so conclusive as I should like to have them'. It does, however, appear to show the castle of La Batiaz at Martigny, which Turner had first sketched on his tour of the Alps in 1802. As in his comments on many of these studies, Ruskin was chiefly interested in discerning Turner's working method: 'The excessive haste with which the colour has been thrown on the sketch, not in the least coinciding with the pencil outlines, and yet the subtlety of the effects wrought as the wash was laid on, render this memorandum, very interesting'.

September 2004