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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > The Route to Venice: The Rivers Mosel ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Distant View of Bolzano (Bozen), with Figures ?near a Wayside Shrine 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Distant View of Bolzano (Bozen), with Figures ?near a Wayside Shrine’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Distant View of Bolzano (Bozen), with Figures ?near a Wayside Shrine 1840
D40188
Pencil on grey wove paper, 195 x 282 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘[?Botxn]’ bottom left
Inscribed in pencil ‘29’ towards bottom left, ascending vertically
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCCLXIV.297’ top right, upside down
Stamped in back with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCLXIV – 297’ top left, upside down
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Not mentioned in Finberg’s 1909 Inventory,1 this is the verso of D36154 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 297), a more developed view with gouache and watercolour featuring Castel Sant’Antonio (Schloss Klebenstein), north of Bolzano (Bozen) in northern Italy. The drawings are inverted relative to each other.
Although the present subject seems to be labelled ‘Botxn’, the slighter treatment makes the viewpoint harder to determine, but the general massing of the distant mountains on the left is similar to that of the recto, suggesting another view from the north, with distant buildings and spires, and perhaps one of the various small neighbouring castles nearer on the left. The small arched structure in the foreground may be a wayside shrine, and there appear to be at least two women in large bonnets, and possibly a child, in front of it.
For more on Bolzano, related works and technical notes on the grey paper, see under the recto.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.1198.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Distant View of Bolzano (Bozen), with Figures ?near a Wayside Shrine 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-distant-view-of-bolzano-bozen-with-figures-near-a-wayside-r1196433, accessed 15 May 2025.