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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?A Northern Italian or Swiss Village; Views among Mountains c.1828-44

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?A Northern Italian or Swiss Village; Views among Mountains c.1828–44
D34568
Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 182v
Pencil on white wove paper, 230 x 91 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?S...]’ towards top right, and ‘[... | ...] bottom centre, descending vertically’
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner used the sheet turned various ways to make several views here; the mountainous subjects are unidentified, but may be in the north of Italy or neighbouring Switzerland; see the Introduction to this section for further brief discussion and dating. Two smaller views, of a village and a pass, are framed by pencil lines. Turner’s scrawled inscriptions do not provide ready clues to the locations.
There is another drawing on the recto (D34567; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 182); the views were made on one half of a folded sheet, with D34565 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 181) opposite the present sketch and D34566 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 181v) on its verso.
Finberg noted: ‘(Nos. [Turner Bequest CCCXLIV] 174–226 were among the contents of a parcel endorsed by Mr. [John] Ruskin, – “B. 2. Forty-eight pieces of paper, some double or 4-ple. Pencil outline, same class as B. 1.”).’1

Matthew Imms
February 2016

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.1123.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?A Northern Italian or Swiss Village; Views among Mountains c.1828–44 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-northern-italian-or-swiss-village-views-among-mountains-r1183055, accessed 19 April 2024.