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 Burg Fragenstein above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Burg Fragenstein above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Burg Fragenstein above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck 1833
D33848
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 159v
Chalk and pencil on grey wove paper, 141 x 189 mm
Inscribed in pencil ‘233 | O’ bottom right
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.
This drawing, D33796, D33843, D33845 and D33851 (CCCXLI 115, 157, 158, 161) show aspects Burg Fragenstein, just north of Zirl, about seven miles west of Innsbruck on Turner’s route through the last of the Alps. The castle and some of the contours of the scene are picked out in white chalk. D33842 (CCCXLI 156) is perhaps a view over the town and the Inn Valley from near the castle. See also D33841, D33846, D33849 and D33852 (CCCXLI 155v, 158v, 160, 161v) for the nearby Kalvarienberg church.
The recto is D33847, where the subject, inverted relative to this one, is a sunset sky over the mountains, possibly on the approach to Zirl.
Technical notes:
There is some scattered brown staining.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Burg Fragenstein 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-burg-fragenstein-above-zirl-in-the-alps-near-innsbruck-r1204278, accessed 20 May 2024.