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 > Separate Sheets Associated with the 1836 ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lake Geneva, from Perle du Lac, Looking towards the Mole and Mont Blanc 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lake Geneva, from Perle du Lac, Looking towards the Mole and Mont Blanc’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lake Geneva, from Perle du Lac, Looking towards the Mole and Mont Blanc 1836
D36236
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 374
Chalk and watercolour on wove paper, 242 x 318 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXIV–374’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This study relates to Turner’s 1836 tour of the Alps, which he made in the company of the wealthy Scottish landowner H.A.J. Munro of Novar; for more information, see the Introduction to this section.
In this study, awash with gentle and harmonious colour, Turner combined watercolour and chalk to capture a view over Lake Geneva; for more information about the viewpoint, see the entry for D34195 (Turner Bequest CCCXLII 11). As David Hill has pointed out, a very similar study shows the same scene under slightly different light conditions; see D36058 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 212).1
1
Hill 2000, p.267.
Technical notes:
The paper historian Peter Bower noted that this study was made on a deep buff wove watercolour paper, which has no watermark; he also catalogued the more opaque drawing media seen on the sheet as gouache rather than chalk, which it has been more recently recorded as.1
1
Bower 1999, p.107.
Verso:
Blank

Elizabeth Jacklin
August 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Lake Geneva, from Perle du Lac, Looking towards the Mole and Mont Blanc 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-lake-geneva-from-perle-du-lac-looking-towards-the-mole-and-r1204637, accessed 13 June 2025.