Joseph Mallord William Turner

Turner’s view in this drawing is along the north bank of Lake Brienz towards the Castle of Ringgenberg. Via a colour study (Tate D04896; Turner Bequest LXXX C) he developed the subject into a finished watercolour, c.1809, for Thomas Wright of Upton (Bowood Collection).1 Wright’s name appears, perhaps with the dimensions ‘27½ x 12½’ (approximately those of the Bowood watercolour if height and width are reversed) and the price of ‘20 G’, in the front of the album compiled by Turner of his best drawings from the 1802 tour (see Introduction and Technical notes to this sketchbook). ‘Lake of Brientz’ is also listed there, but alongside another name, probably Walter Fawkes.

Verso:

Blank, inscribed perhaps by a later hand in pencil ‘6’, and in a different hand ‘154’