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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > Lake Thun Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Mountain Village: ?Wassen 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Mountain Village: ?Wassen’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 30 Recto:
A Mountain Village: ?Wassen 1802
D04686
Turner Bequest LXXVI 30
Pencil on white laid paper, 201 x 156 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘30’ top right
Stamped in black ‘LXXVI 30’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg’s suggestion of Wassen for this mountain village with chalets and church is plausible. A further possibility might be Göschenen.Turner passed through both places on his way along the St Gotthard road in the Reuss valley, and again on his way back. Other drawings probably or certainly of the Reuss and the St Gotthard route in this sketchbook are folios 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 36 verso, 37, 38, 40 (D04687, D04688, D04689, D04690, D04691, D04692, D04693, D04694, D04695, D04697).The St Gotthard road with its famous and frightening sights like the Devil’s and Little Devil’s Bridges effectively marked the scenic climax of Turner’s tour, and in recognition of its pictorial potential he made his sketches ‘particularly lively’, as David Hill has described.1
1
David Hill, Turner in the Alps. The Journey through France and Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, p.168.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
March 2004

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘A Mountain Village: ?Wassen 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2004, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-mountain-village-wassen-r1133161, accessed 19 April 2024.