Joseph Mallord William Turner

The River Arve, with Mont Blanc in the Distance

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
St Gothard and Mont Blanc Sketchbook
Medium
Chalk and graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 315 × 473 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D04619
Turner Bequest LXXV 27

Catalogue entry

Finberg’s identification of the River Arve and Mont Blanc is preferable to that of ‘Dent du Midi, end of Lake Geneva’ used when the watercolour was shown at the National Gallery. The location is perhaps near St Martin. Gerald Wilkinson, while noting that the watercolour is faded, praises its ‘immense breadth and subtlety of tone’, adding; ‘Like all [Turner’s] best work it is an honest drawing with no special striving for effect – and he is quite undaunted by the difficulties of taking in such a large expanse of country.’1
1
Wilkinson 1974, p.49.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
October 2011

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