Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Pass of St Gotthard, near Faido: Sample Study

c.1842–3

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Medium: Graphite, watercolour and pen on paper
Dimensions: Support: 229 × 290 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference: D36055
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 209

Display caption

Ruskin wrote extensively about this view in 'Modern Painters', and even set out to discover the site for himself in 1845, just three years after Turner's own revelatory visit to the St Gotthard Pass. In the catalogue of this selection of watercolours Ruskin stated that this 'was a favourite sketch of Turner's. He realised it for me in 1843, with his fullest power; and the resultant drawing is, I believe, the greatest work he produced in the last period of his art'. The finished watercolour is now in America.

Gallery label, September 2004

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