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 Fort Bard, Looking down the Val d'Aosta 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fort Bard, Looking down the Val d'Aosta’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Recto:
Fort Bard, Looking down the Val d’Aosta 1836
D29272
Turner Bequest CCXCIV 33
Pencil on white wove paper, 104 x 148 mm
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘33’ top left, running vertically, and with the Turner Bequest schedule number ‘357’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIV 33’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Looking down the Val d’Aosta, this sketch provides a detailed view of the village and Fort Bard from a near viewpoint. The detail of the village possibly informed the watercolour of Fort Bard (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight)1 but the fort is there taken from a different angle.
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.481 no.1515, as ‘Swiss valley scene’.
Verso:
Blank

David Hill
June 2010

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Fort Bard, Looking down the Val d’Aosta 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-fort-bard-looking-down-the-val-daosta-r1144823, accessed 25 April 2024.