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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Hereford Court Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View from Capel Curig towards Snowdon, with the Mountains under Cloud 1798

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View from Capel Curig towards Snowdon, with the Mountains under Cloud’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 70 Recto:
View from Capel Curig towards Snowdon, with the Mountains under Cloud 1798
D01332
Turner Bequest XXXVIII 78
Pencil with some watercolour on white wove paper, 229 x 332 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram centre right in the washed area
Stamped in black ‘XXXVIII 78’ bottom left, descending vertically
Edward Yardley proposed that this drawing was used as the basis for Turner’s two large watercolours of Cader Idris (currently untraced),1 but there seems little doubt that it actually shows Llyn Mymbyr and the valley of Nant-y-Gwrhyd, seen looking west from Capel Curig. Snowdon in the distance is hidden under cloud. The identification is confirmed by another drawing in this book, showing the same view from a little further east when the cloud had cleared; see folio 77 recto (D01301; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 48).
Finberg noted that this page was originally ‘Probably p. 48a’,2 that is, it would fall as folio 78 recto between what are now folios 77 recto and 79 recto (D01301, D01302; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 48, 49), where D01325 (Turner Bequest XXXVIII 71) has since been bound in instead.
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.328 nos.259, reproduced, 260.
2
Finberg 1909, I, p.88.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘View from Capel Curig towards Snowdon, with the Mountains under Cloud 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-view-from-capel-curig-towards-snowdon-with-the-mountains-r1173210, accessed 23 April 2024.