J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Mountains, with “Bridge”; also castle commanding pass’): ‘Sigmundskron (Firmiano), nr Bolzano, with 2 distant views of Bolzano’.1 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy: ‘Siegmundskron near Bolzano’.2

The most prominent subject here is indeed the dramatically situated Castel Firmiano (Schloss Sigmundskron, now a museum), above the River Adige (Etsch) south-west of Bolzano (Bozen). The castle is seen from the north, with a covered wooden bridge over the river below, leading to a large gatehouse, which survives, somewhat modified, at the foot of the slope. The road is now spanned by a modern steel bridge just upstream to the right. Below, on the right of a wider prospect down the valley with the Dolomites beyond, the gatehouse is seen again; see also folios 21 verso, and 24 recto and verso (D31638, D31643–D31644). One of the sketches on the verso (D31642) shows the bridge and castle from further back. There are numerous drawings in the vicinity on adjacent pages and elsewhere in the sketchbook; for these and further discussion, see under folio 1 verso (D31598).

There are two mountain scenes at the top of the page, with the upper one continued a little way onto folio 22 verso opposite (D31640). These are not so readily recognised, and may have been drawn nearby or on another occasion. Over half of the pages in this book comprise relatively slight sketches from Turner’s homeward route north through the valleys of the Alps via Trento, Bolzano (Bozen) and Innsbruck. As set out in the Introduction, although his overall itinerary is clear from many identified subjects, they were are not drawn in a single sequence, making the rugged scenes between them difficult to place.