Joseph Mallord William Turner

Three Sketches: Shakespeare’s Monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon; Avise in the Val d’Aosta, and ? Scene in the Val d’Aosta

1833 and 1836

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Not on display
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Val d’Aosta Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 113 x 190 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D29189
Turner Bequest CCXCIII 80 a

Catalogue entry

This page contains three sketches:
i. (main sketch, drawn inverted in relation to the main numbered sequence of subjects in the sketchbook) A hastily-drawn sketch of the chancel of Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon, as seen from the south-east corner, with Shakespeare’s Monument summarily indicated on the wall, centre left, the double monument of Richard and Judith Combe occupying the centre of the page, and the floor tomb of Thomas Balsall below.1 Turner sketched Shakespeare’s Monument in detail on a succeeding page (D29191; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 81a) and the same material in greater detail from the south-west angle on another (D29193; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 82a), these sketches forming the basis of a finished watercolour of Shakespeare’s Monument (untraced)2 painted 1833–4 and engraved by J. Horsburgh for The Prose Works of Sir Walter Scott (1834). See Introduction to the sketchbook for the presence of a small run of sketches at Stratford dating from 1833 as well as the majority of subjects from 1836 including the following.
ii. (right, drawn with the page upright) Avise, looking up the Val d’Aosta, a more distant view than on a subsequent page (D29192; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 83). The whole valley floor here is now filled with a hydo-electricity generating station.
iii. (left, drawn with the page upright) A very quick thumbnail sketch of an Alpine valley, possibly the Val d’Aosta near the site of (ii) above.

David Hill
June 2010

1
The present writer is grateful to Jon Ormrod, Head Verger at Holy Trinity, for providing the dedications of the tombs.
2
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.430 no.1101.

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