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 Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons, Looking down the Arve Valley to Chamonix: Pale Morning 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons, Looking down the Arve Valley to Chamonix: Pale Morning’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons, Looking down the Arve Valley to Chamonix: Pale Morning 1836
D36226
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 364
Pencil and watercolour on paper, 247 x 280 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXIV–364’ bottom right
Inscribed in blue ink ‘1561’ bottom right
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.
Turner used subtle washes of colour to capture Mont Blanc’s snowy summit, shown against a blue sky; he also denoted some of the details of the Arve valley below it in pencil. It is one of a group of colour studies, all looking towards Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons; for more information and a list of the others, see the entry for Tate D35996 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 152).
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘88’ upper centre and ‘CCCLXIV–364’ bottom centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCCLXIV–364’ bottom right.

Elizabeth Jacklin
August 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘Mont Blanc and the Glacier des Bossons, Looking down the Arve Valley to Chamonix: Pale Morning 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-mont-blanc-and-the-glacier-des-bossons-looking-down-the-arve-r1204635, accessed 05 April 2026.