Joseph Mallord William Turner

View from Capel Curig towards Snowdon, with the Mountains under Cloud

1798

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Hereford Court Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 229 × 332 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D01332
Turner Bequest XXXVIII 78

Catalogue entry

Edward Yardley proposed that this drawing was used as the basis for Turner’s two large watercolours of Cader Idris (currently untraced),1 but there seems little doubt that it actually shows Llyn Mymbyr and the valley of Nant-y-Gwrhyd, seen looking west from Capel Curig. Snowdon in the distance is hidden under cloud. The identification is confirmed by another drawing in this book, showing the same view from a little further east when the cloud had cleared; see folio 77 recto (D01301; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 48).
Finberg noted that this page was originally ‘Probably p. 48a’,2 that is, it would fall as folio 78 recto between what are now folios 77 recto and 79 recto (D01301, D01302; Turner Bequest XXXVIII 48, 49), where D01325 (Turner Bequest XXXVIII 71) has since been bound in instead.
1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.328 nos.259, reproduced, 260.
2
Finberg 1909, I, p.88.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

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