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

The subject of this loose watercolour study, a view of the Alpine peaks of Mont Blanc and Le Chetif (or Mont Chetif), was first identified by the Turner scholar David Hill.1 Le Chetif is the closer and more dominant peak from this viewpoint within the Aosta Valley in Italy. Its distinctive triangular summit is seen in the upper left, with the much higher peak of Mont Blanc just glimpsed in the distance. The view was taken from around the town of Pre-Saint-Didier, as Hill has demonstrated.2

Turner chose a very similar vantage point for another study catalogued in this section, the monochromatic D25385 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 262). Various other sketches made around Pre-Saint-Didier indicate that Turner and his travelling companion, the wealthy Scottish landowner H.A.J. Munro of Novar, stayed there for several days in 1836.3 For Turner’s sketches of the gorge and waterfall at Pre-Saint-Didier, see the entry for Tate D36240 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 377). For more information about Turner’s 1836 tour of the Alps, see the Introduction to this section.

While both this study and D25385 evoke a sense of stormy Alpine weather, the present sketch has a different feel to it due to the distinctive use of colour, the hills in the right foreground depicted using warm, rosy-coloured watercolour.

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions: stamped in black with the Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCLXIII 258’ bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘62’ and ‘CCLXIII 258’ bottom right.