Joseph Mallord William Turner Fallen Trees, Chartreuse 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Fallen Trees, Chartreuse 1802
D04531
Turner Bequest LXXIV 38
Turner Bequest LXXIV 38
Pencil, black chalk and white gouache on greyish-buff laid paper, 215 x 282 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 38’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 38’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1857
Marlborough House, London, 1857 (as part of 28, as ‘Fallen Trees’).
1878
National Gallery, London, various dates from 1878 to 1904 (38).
1976
Turner und die Schweiz, Kunsthaus, Zürich, October 1976–January 1977 (7).
1979
Turner’s First Visit to the Continent: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest Loaned by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, July–December 1979 (no catalogue).
1981
Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris, October 1981–January 1982 (5/4).
2013
J.M.W. Turner: The Making of a Master, Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, February–May 2013, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, June–September 2013 (23).
References
1859
John Burnet and Peter Cunningham, Turner and his Works: Illustrated with Examples from his Pictures, and Critical Remarks on his Principles of Painting, 2nd ed., revised by Henry Murray, London 1859, p.116 as part of no.28, as ‘Fallen Trees’.
1862
Walter Thornbury, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Founded on Letters and Papers Furnished by his Friends and Fellow-Academicians, London 1862 [1861], p.389.
1897
Walter Thornbury, The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Founded on Letters and Papers Furnished by his Friends and Fellow-Academicians: A New Edition, Revised with 8 Coloured Illustrations after Turner’s Originals and 2 Woodcuts, London 1897, p.585.
1902
E.T. Cook (ed.), Ruskin on Pictures: A Collection of Criticisms by John Ruskin not heretofore Re-printed and now Re-edited and Re-arranged, London 1902, vol.I, p.225.
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, pp.264, 634.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.198, LXXIV 38.
1976
Andrew Wilton, Turner und die Schweiz, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthaus, Zürich 1976 (no individual catalogue entry).
1981
Lindsay Stainton, in Maurice Guillaud and others, Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, exhibition catalogue, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris 1981, pp.67, 56 reproduced Fig.95.
1981
Laure Meyer, ‘Turner et la France: exposition’, L’Estampille, no.139, November 1981, p.10 reproduced.
2013
Nicola Moorby, in Ian Warrell (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: The Making of a Master, Adelaide 2013, pp.103, 111 reproduced in colour, 111, 249.
In his catalogue notes for Marlborough House, John Ruskin stated that this drawing of ‘shattered trunks’ was ‘marked ...simply “G.C.” (meaning Grande Chartreuse). It is very noble.’1 One of Turner’s labels is inscribed ‘Gd C’. For display, Ruskin placed the drawing with another, similarly bold, of Grindelwald (D04537; Turner Bequest LXXIV 44) as an antidote to the ‘meek classicism’ of subjects at and near Aosta also exhibited.2 For Turner’s visit to the Chartreuse in 1802 see Introduction to the sketchbook. Trees in the valley near the Grande Chartreuse monastery were regularly felled for timber but also, as Ruskin noted in his diary in June 1849, by avalanches, ‘hurled hither and thither, twisted and mingled in all conditions of form, and all phases of expiring life’.3
Verso:
Blank
David Blayney Brown
August 2013
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘Fallen Trees, Chartreuse 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www