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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > Grenoble Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner An Alpine Chalet 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Alpine Chalet’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
An Alpine Chalet 1802
D04546
Turner Bequest LXXIV 53
Pencil on greyish-buff laid paper, 218 x 283 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 53’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The title ‘Cottage outline used in Aiguillette’ was given to this drawing by John Ruskin, evidently on the basis that the building is the same as in the two watercolours of L’Aiguillette, Valley of Cluses from his collection (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina).1 However, while there is some general resemblance, the roof is different, the chimney is on the left instead of the right and there is no mill wheel or bridge despite the drawing being evidently made on the spot. Moreover the mountains are much lower than in the watercolours, where they include La Croix de Fer. The watercolours, on the other hand, were so accurate that Ruskin was able to find the cottage and bridge ‘exactly as Turner has drawn them’ when he visited Switzerland ‘in my young days’2 in 1833 and 1835.
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, pp.340–1 no.357, 342 no.372.
2
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, p.420.
Verso:
Laid down

David Blayney Brown
September 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘An Alpine Chalet 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-an-alpine-chalet-r1146411, accessed 26 April 2024.