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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Tour to the Alps 1836 > Val d'Aosta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches: Looking Down the Val d'Aosta to Courmayeur and Dolonne, and The Aiguille de Varens and Mont Blanc from Above Sallanches 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches: Looking Down the Val d'Aosta to Courmayeur and Dolonne, and The Aiguille de Varens and Mont Blanc from Above Sallanches’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 37 Recto:
Two Sketches: Looking Down the Val d’Aosta to Courmayeur and Dolonne, and The Aiguille de Varens and Mont Blanc from Above Sallanches 1836
D29104
Turner Bequest CCXCIII 37
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Sal’
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘37’ bottom left, inverted, and ‘320’ top left, inverted
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIII 37’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two sketches:
i. (main sketch, drawn inverted in relation to the main numbered sequence of subjects in the sketchbook) Looking down the Val d’Aosta from the Pont de La Villette to the Pont de Dolonne, with Mont Crammont above, Courmayeur at the left edge and Dolonne to the right. The sketch is from the same viewpoint as that on the verso (D29105; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 37a) but looking in the opposite direction, and recording a similar view to another sketch in the same sketchbook (D29077; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 23a), but taken from below the Pont de La Villette rather than above, and radically compressing the panorama into the space left on the page by the drawing of Sallanches (ii). See also a further drawing in the sketchbook (D29041; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 5a) which shows the view to Dolonne over the downstream side of the Pont de Dolonne.
ii. (right, drawn with the book held upright, and continuing the sequence of sketches on D29103, Turner Bequest 36a, opposite) The Arve Valley from above Sallanches, with Mont Blanc in the distance, right.

David Hill
June 2010

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Two Sketches: Looking Down the Val d’Aosta to Courmayeur and Dolonne, and The Aiguille de Varens and Mont Blanc from Above Sallanches 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-sketches-looking-down-the-val-daosta-to-courmayeur-and-r1144651, accessed 25 April 2024.