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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Outline of a Mountain 1799

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Verso:
The Outline of a Mountain 1799
D02073
Turner Bequest XLVI 51a
Pencil on white wove paper prepared with a pale buff ground, 79 x 130 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This study, made with the page turned horizontally, and the equally rapid note on folio 52 verso (D02075) seem to be memoranda of the silhouette of part of the Snowdon massif, probably as seen from the north-west, on the path by which Turner ascended the mountain, as his note on folio 53 recto (D02076) records. It would be appropriate that he took this small book in his pocket when tackling the peak, though when he climbed Cader Idris in 1798 he used a considerably larger book, the Hereford Court sketchbook, to record what he saw on the way up (Tate D01324, D01326; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 70, 72).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘The Outline of a Mountain 1799 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-the-outline-of-a-mountain-r1179932, accessed 19 September 2024.