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
D33851
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 161
Pencil on grey wove paper, 137 x 189 mm
Inscribed in pencil ‘233 | O’ bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘161’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 161’ 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.1
D33796, D33843, D33845, D33848 and D33851 (CCCXLI 115, 157, 158, 159v, 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. D33842 (CCCXLI 156) is a view over the town and the Inn Valley from near the castle. The apertures and outline of a former gable on the south side of the nearer tower are still recognisable, while the other has since been reroofed. The wooden bridge in the foreground is over the Schlossbach stream, running south-west to the Inn.
The verso is D33852 (CCCXLI 161v), where the dramatic vertical subject is the nearby Kalvarienberg church; see also D33841, D33846 and D33849 (CCCXLI 155v, 158v, 160).
1
See also Powell 1995, pp.44, 79 note 84.
Technical notes:
There is some 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-r1204281, accessed 20 May 2024.