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 The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck 1833
D33841
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 155v
Chalk and pencil on grey wove paper, 189 x 136 mm
Partial watermark ‘B | 1’
Inscribed in pencil ‘233 | O’ bottom left, descending vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
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 in the vicinity of Innsbruck within a short period around 23 September 1833, when Turner was travelling back from Venice towards the end of his tour, as discussed in the Introduction to the present subsection.1
Among them are three views of the late-Baroque Kalvarienberg Church (1803–5)2 on its steep crag north-east of Zirl, about seven miles west of Innsbruck, each drawn with the sheet turned vertically; see also D33846 and D33852 (CCCXLI 158v, 161v). The second is similar to this one, while the first is from further off in the same direction. There is some white chalk highlighting the buildings and hillside, and a diagonal stroke in the gorge indicates the Ehnbach stream. The church is also seen from a more elevated viewpoint on D33849 (CCCXLI 160).
The recto is D33840 (CCCXLI 155), a street scene, likely in Zirl itself, drawn horizontally; see the entry for views of the nearby Burg Fragenstein.
1
See also Powell 1995, pp.44, 79 note 84.
2
See ‘Kalvarienberg Chapel Zirl’, TouristLink, accessed 10 May 2019, https://www.touristlink.com/austria/kalvarienberg-chapel-zirl/overview.html.
Technical notes:
There is scattered brown staining. For the watermark, see the Introduction to this subsection.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps 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-the-kalvarienberg-church-above-zirl-in-the-alps-near-r1204271, accessed 20 May 2024.