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 > St Gothard and Mont Blanc Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Wooded Valley, Mountains in the Distance 1802

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Wooded Valley, Mountains in the Distance’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Recto:
A Wooded Valley, Mountains in the Distance 1802
D04637
Turner Bequest LXXV 45
Pencil and black chalk on white wove paper prepared with grey wash, 315 x 473 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘45’ bottom right
Stmped in black ‘LXXV 45’ bottom left, descending vertically
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
The inscription ‘Le Fort de St. Rock, Valley de Aoust’ recorded by Finberg as attached to this drawing is no longer present and might instead have belonged to the coloured study of Fort Roch (Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge) if, as has usually been thought, it originated in this sketchbook.1 Both the Fitzwilliam study and the finished version made for Walter Fawkes2 show scenery much more dramatic than the relatively shallow, pastoral valley depicted here.
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.341 no.360, as ‘Fortified pass, Val d’Aosta’. Regarding the origins of the Fitzwilliam drawing, however, it must be noted that Peter Bower has recognised that two other drawings formerly thought to have come from this sketchbook are actually on different paper; see Introduction to the sketchbook.
2
Wilton 1979, p.341 no.369.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
October 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘A Wooded Valley, Mountains in the Distance 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-wooded-valley-mountains-in-the-distance-r1146504, accessed 26 April 2024.