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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Tunnel within the Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Tunnel within the Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 86 Verso:
A Tunnel within the Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass 1819
D14311
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 85 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch represents a view within the Val Divedro (Valley of Divedro or Simplon Valley) from the road to the Simplon Pass. The precise location remains unidentified. However, on the right-hand side of the composition there is the entrance to a tunnel or gallery carved through the rock. For a similar view see the Passage of the Simplon sketchbook (Tate D16931; Turner Bequest CXCIV 22a).
For a general discussion of Turner’s journey to the Simplon Pass see the introduction to the sketchbook, and also the introduction to the Passage of the Simplon sketchbook (Tate, Turner Bequest CXCIV).

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘A Tunnel within the Val Divedro, on the Road to the Simplon Pass 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-tunnel-within-the-val-divedro-on-the-road-to-the-simplon-r1142832, accessed 05 April 2026.