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

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘“Vale of Meran.”’): ‘Siegmundskron in foreground’.1 The subject is indeed the dramatically situated Castel Firmiano (Schloss Sigmundskron, now a museum), above the River Adige (Etsch) south-west of Bolzano (Bozen). 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).

In this horizontal view, the castle is seen from the elevated approach road towards its south end, with a small neighbouring hill in the central foreground. In this case the castle’s immediate setting is less the focus than the prospect up the Adige Valley to the north-west in the direction of Merano (Meran), roughly fifteen miles away, as implied by Turner’s inscription; see also folio 46 verso (D31688). The Sarntal Alps rise to the right of the valley, with the Nonsberg range to the left. Turner would pass through Merano itself and down the valley in this direction in 1840; see the Introduction to that year’s Rotterdam to Venice sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCCXX).