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 with a Distant Church, ?near Innsbruck 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Alpine Mountain Valley with a Distant Church, ?near Innsbruck’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
An Alpine Mountain Valley with a Distant Church, ?near Innsbruck 1833
D33865
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 170
Chalk and pencil on grey wove paper, 148 x 189 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘233 | O’ top left
Inscribed in red ink ‘170’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 170’ 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
The wave-like line across the middle distance likely indicates a river of the edge of a lake. Beyond, a church spire is picked out in white chalk against the succession of rugged mountains rising against the bright sky. Compare the stronger effects in D33847 and D33863 (CCCXLI 159, 169).
The verso is D33866 (CCCXLI 170v), where the moonlit scene is inverted relative to this one.
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, ‘An Alpine Mountain Valley with a Distant Church, ?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-with-a-distant-church-near-r1204292, accessed 20 May 2024.