Joseph Mallord William Turner

A Ruined Castle among Mountains ?in the Dolomites

1840

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: Rotterdam to Venice Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite on paper
Dimensions: Support: 89 × 149 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D32350
Turner Bequest CCCXX 45 a

Catalogue entry

The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. It shows what seems to be a ruined castle on a crag surrounded by towering peaks; the same building is likely shown on the recto (D32349).

A long sequence of sketches, mostly characterised as ‘Mountains’ by Finberg (with occasional identifications and transcriptions of the place names marked by the artist), lies between folios 7 recto and 76 recto (D32275–D32411).1 See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the likely overall route between Bregenz and Venice.2

Matthew Imms
September 2018

See Finberg 1909, II, pp.1030–2.

See also Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.65, 81 note 9.

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