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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for 'Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake' c.1802-5

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for 'Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake'’ c.1802-5
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Verso:
Study for ‘Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake’ c.1802–5
D04923
Turner Bequest LXXXI 22
Black and white chalks on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and ‘VI’
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–22’ top left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
In about 1805 Turner was working on a large watercolour of Lake Geneva for Edward Lascelles, Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven).1 The subject is studied repeatedly in this sketchbook; see under folio 8 verso (D04917; Turner Bequest LXXXI 16). Here, with the page turned horizontally, the foreground is populated with numerous figures, and the background is almost blank, missing its views of Mont Blanc and the city of Geneva.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.342 no.370, reproduced.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study for ‘Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake’ c.1802–5 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 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-study-for-lake-of-geneva-with-mont-blanc-from-the-lake-r1178127, accessed 25 April 2024.