J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches of Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches of Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 86 Recto:
Two Sketches of Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass 1819
D14310
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 85
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 186 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Ddro’ near bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘85’ top right and ‘284’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIV 85’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains one large sketch and one small study in the top right-hand corner of the page. Both appear to depict views within the Val Divedro (Valley of Divedro or Simplon Valley), which lies between Gondo and Crevoladossola near the Swiss/Italian border. Turner travelled through the valley en route to the Simplon Pass in the Swiss Alps. The drawings are too rough to be conclusively identified. However, the main sketch, which possibly spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 85 verso (D14309; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 84a), has been annotated ‘Ddro’, presumably meaning ‘D[ive]dro’.
For a general discussion of Turner’s journey to the Simplon Pass see the introduction to the sketchbook, and also the introduction to the Passage of the Simplon sketchbook (Tate, Turner Bequest CXCIV).

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Sketches of Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-sketches-of-val-divedro-on-the-road-to-the-simplon-pass-r1142831, accessed 19 April 2024.