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 ... > Rotterdam to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Group of Men and Women in Traditional Costume; Buildings among Mountains ?in the Tyrol Alps or Dolomites 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Group of Men and Women in Traditional Costume; Buildings among Mountains ?in the Tyrol Alps or Dolomites’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
A Group of Men and Women in Traditional Costume; Buildings among Mountains ?in the Tyrol Alps or Dolomites 1840
D32319
Turner Bequest CCCXX 30
Pencil on white wove paper, 89 x 149 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Green’ top left, ‘Red Stoks’ (stockings) towards bottom left, ‘Red Cl[...] H[...] to M[...]s’ top centre, and ‘Red and Green Belts’ top right, around figures
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘30’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXX – 30’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. At least eight men and women are shown standing and sitting, without immediate context; Finberg described them as ‘figures of peasants’,1 and they appear to be local people in traditional everyday costume, perhaps observed at an inn or market.
On earlier tours, Turner occasionally reserved a sketchbook for such studies; compare for example Tate D04810 (Turner Bequest LXXVIII 13) among numerous examples in the 1802 Swiss Figures book. By this stage such studies are relatively uncommon, but see also the verso and folio 31 verso (D32320, D32322). Turner’s Swiss studies had been tinted in watercolours; here, as customary with such pencil sketches, the colours of individual items of clothing have been carefully annotated. Ann Chumbley and Ian Warrell have observed the ‘continuing relevance’ of such information: ‘While in the watercolour studies of the period figures are indicated in a summary fashion, it is apparent that they were based on a prior knowledge of carefully observed detail.’2
Below, framed side by side with pencil lines, are three thumbnail sketches of castles and perhaps other buildings in mountainous settings. A long sequence of sketches, mostly characterised as ‘Mountains’ by Finberg (with occasional identifications and transcriptions of the place names marked by the artist), lies between folios 7 recto and 76 recto (D32275–D32411).3 See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the likely overall route between Bregenz and Venice.4

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Finberg 1909, II, p.1030.
2
Chumbley and Warrell 1989, p.61.
3
See Finberg 1909, II, pp.1030–2.
4
See also Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.65, 81 note 9.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Group of Men and Women in Traditional Costume; Buildings among Mountains ?in the Tyrol Alps or Dolomites 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-group-of-men-and-women-in-traditional-costume-buildings-r1196553, accessed 06 May 2025.