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 > Fort Bard Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches: A Hilltop Fort and Two Figures on a Mountain Road, near Valloire in the Maurienne Valley 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches: A Hilltop Fort and Two Figures on a Mountain Road, near Valloire in the Maurienne Valley’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 28 Verso:
Two Sketches: A Hilltop Fort and Two Figures on a Mountain Road, near Valloire in the Maurienne Valley 1836
D29263
Turner Bequest CCXCIV 27a
Pencil on white wove paper, 104 x 148 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Turner Cox [?]’, ‘Valloise [?]’, ‘Le Mont Cher’, ‘Vins’ and ‘Cond... Chal... and the ... ...’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two sketches:
i. (top, the main sketch) A hilltop fort, possibly in the Maurienne Valley or near Chambéry, and again perhaps the same site as recorded elsewhere in the sketchbook (D29245, D29267; Turner Bequest CCXCIV 18a, 29).
ii. (below left) Two figures on the road, inscribed variously ‘Valloise [?]’, ‘Le Mont Cher’ , ‘Vins’ and then illegibly with several more words.
Maurice Guillaud1 read part of this inscription as ‘Vallouise’, inferring that Turner took in the area around Briançon on this tour, and moreovers suggested ‘Vars’ instead of ‘Vins’ (vines) at the foot of the page to indicate the Pass of Vars in the distance. This would be a significant detour from the Mont Cenis-Chambéry route via the Maurienne Valley that is certainly documented in the sketchbook, and is unsupported by any other evidence.

David Hill
June 2010

1
Guillaud in Turner en France, 1981, p.483.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Two Sketches: A Hilltop Fort and Two Figures on a Mountain Road, near Valloire in the Maurienne Valley 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-a-hilltop-fort-and-two-figures-on-a-mountain-r1144815, accessed 19 September 2024.