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, Val d'Aosta 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Fort Bard, Val d'Aosta’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Recto:
Fort Bard, Val d’Aosta 1836
D29290
Turner Bequest CCXCIV 43
Pencil on white wove paper, 104 x 148 mm
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘43’ top left, running vertically, and with the Turner Bequest schedule number ‘357’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIV 43’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Fort Bard, Val d’Aosta, is seen here from the north, in a near view with the bridge in the foreground. A related watercolour of Fort Bard (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight)1 is evidently from a rather different viewpoint since there is no view here of Bard church spire in the valley to the left; the closer source may have been the sketch on the verso (D29291; Turner Bequest CCXCIV 43a).

David Hill
June 2010

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.481 no.1515.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Fort Bard, 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-val-daosta-r1144840, accessed 26 April 2024.