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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Zirl and the Alps near Innsbruck; ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner An Alpine Mountain Valley ?near Innsbruck 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Alpine Mountain Valley ?near Innsbruck’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
An Alpine Mountain Valley ?near Innsbruck 1833
D33696
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 18
Chalk and pencil on grey wove paper, 147 x 189 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘B Sky | [...] yellow | [...] R | Shadows B[...] and [...] | [...]’ top left, and ‘23 of Sep 1833 | S[...] Bds Sky [...] | and the [...]’ top right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘18’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 18’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The exact setting of this mountain scene is unidentified, but is likely in the Alps near Innsbruck, where Turner was recorded in the local press as arriving on the very day he (most unusually) noted in full among the extensive colour notes across the sky. The distant peaks and what may be a river towards the foreground are picked out in white chalk.
This is one of twenty-eight sketches of mountain scenes (some including castles and other buildings) on the rectos and versos of sixteen pieces of grey paper torn carefully from a single sheet; they were likely all made within a short period towards the end of the 1833 tour, as discussed in the Introduction to the present subsection.1 There are similar observations on D33866 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 170v), another of this group.
The verso is D33697 (CCCXLI 18v), which shows a similar subject.
1
See also Powell 1995, pp.44, 79 note 84.
Technical notes:
There is prominent offsetting from the corner of a regular sheet or object towards the right, which has obscured and smudged part of Turner’s inscription.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘An Alpine Mountain Valley ?near Innsbruck 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-an-alpine-mountain-valley-near-innsbruck-r1204266, accessed 20 May 2024.