Bonneville; Bridge over the River Arve

1802

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of: France, Savoy, Piedmont Sketchbook
Medium: Graphite and chalk on paper
Dimensions: Support: 138 x 215 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D04443
Turner Bequest LXXIII 48

Catalogue entry

For Bonneville see especially folio 46 in this sketchbook (D04440), and also folio 47 (D04442). Turner’s view here is the same as in one of the two drawings of Bonneville in his larger St Gothard and Mont Blanc sketchbook (Tate D04599; Turner Bequest LXXV 7), and repeated in the picture exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803 (Dallas Museum of Fine Art).1 Turner’s inscription was presumably added later from memory, and must refer to the Villeneuve near Geneva rather than that in the Val d’Aosta which he also visited in 1802 but is a long way from Bonneville. David Hill, in correspondence with the author,2 has suggested an alternative reading of ‘V’ [that is, Vers or towards] but the inscription clearly reads ‘Villeneuve’.

Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.35–6 no.46 (pl.56).

Letter to David Blayney Brown, 4 April 2004, Tate catalogue files.

Verso:

Blank

David Blayney Brown
June 2004

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