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 > Paris, France, Savoy 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Study of Boats on the ?River Saône; and a ?View near the Pass of Mont Cenis 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Study of Boats on the ?River Saône; and a ?View near the Pass of Mont Cenis’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 16 Verso:
A Study of Boats on the ?River Saône; and a ?View near the Pass of Mont Cenis 1819
D14017
Turner Bequest CLXXIII 16 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 185 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘[?T...] within sketch of boat centre right, and ‘Mt Cenis’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page represents a rather confusing jumble of two distinct sketches with unrelated subjects. At the top of the sheet is a study of boats moored against a shore or quayside, possibly representing vessels on the Saône river. A very small part of the sketch spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 17 (D14018). At the bottom meanwhile is a very rough sketch of a mountainous landscape. The location is unidentified, and does not seem to fit in with the logical geographical progression of Turner’s journey through France, although the artist has annotated the view ‘Mt Cenis’, indicating the Mont Cenis pass through which he crossed the Alps from France to Italy. The drawing appears to include a small house or building and a couple of crosses near a circular wall or viewing point.

Nicola Moorby
March 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘A Study of Boats on the ?River Saône; and a ?View near the Pass of Mont Cenis 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-a-study-of-boats-on-the-river-saone-and-a-view-near-the-pass-r1142877, accessed 26 April 2024.