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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Tour to the Alps 1836 > Fort Bard Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Road over Mountains 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Road over Mountains’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 18 Verso:
A Road over Mountains 1836
D29243
Turner Bequest CCXCIV 17 (but see main catalogue entry)
Pencil on white wove paper, 104 x 148 mm
Watermarked ‘[B. Arno]sso’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Road’, ‘Mt A...’
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIV 17’ top left, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch shows a ‘Road’ descending into a valley, a castle on the opposite hillside on the left, a church spire on the distant valley floor, and above a high road snaking upwards towards ‘Mt A...’
This page was numbered as the recto by Finberg, who appears to have missed the original blue ink numbering, possibly by John Ruskin, treating the opposite side (otherwise blank) as the recto, and was stamped with a Turner Bequest number accordingly. It has since been rebound, in its correct orientation, as folio 18 verso.
The other (recto) side is also inscribed with the Turner Bequest schedule number ‘357’ bottom right.

David Hill
June 2010

How to cite

David Hill, ‘A Road over Mountains 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-road-over-mountains-r1144795, accessed 02 April 2026.