Joseph Mallord William Turner

The Pass of St Gotthard, near Faido: Sample Study

c.1842–3

Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)

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Not on display

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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