Joseph Mallord William Turner The Lower Glacier, Grindelwald, with the Eiger 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
The Lower Glacier, Grindelwald, with the Eiger
1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Lower Glacier, Grindelwald, with the Eiger 1802
D04537
Turner Bequest LXXIV 44
Turner Bequest LXXIV 44
Pencil, black chalk and white gouache on greyish-buff laid paper, 210 x 282 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 44’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 44’ 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 ‘Glaciers of Grindelwald’).
1878
National Gallery, London, various dates from 1878 to 1904 (543a).
1947
William Turner 1775–1851: Die Ausstellung wurde von der Tate Gallery für den British Council organisiert, Berner Kunstmuseum, Berne, December 1947–February 1948 (67).
1976
Turner und die Schweiz, Kunsthaus, Zürich, October 1976–January 1977 (17).
1977
Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, International Exhibitions Foundation tour, Cleveland Museum of Art, September–November 1977, Detroit Institute of Arts, December 1977–February 1978, Philadelphia Museum of Art, March–April 1978 (5).
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).
1997
Joseph Mallord William Turner, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna, March–June 1997 (18).
1997
J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: A Tate Gallery Collection Exhibition, Yokohama Museum of Art, June–August 1997, Fukuoka Art Museum, September–October 1997, Nagoya City Art Museum, October–December 1997 (15).
1998
Turner in the Alps 1802, Tate Gallery, London, November 1998–February 1999, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, March–June 1999 (61, as ‘The Lower Glacier, Grindelwald, with the Eiger’).
2008
¿¿¿¿¿¿ [Turner] (1775–1851), Pushkin Museum of Art, Moscow, November 2008–February 2009 (12).
2009
Turner from the Tate Collection, National Art Museum of China, Beijing, April–July 2009 (12).
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 ‘Glaciers of Grindelwald’.
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, as ‘Glaciers, Grindelwald’.
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.199, LXXIV 44.
1947
[Humphrey Brooke], William Turner 1775–1851: Die Ausstellung wurde von der Tate Gallery für den British Council organisiert, exhibition catalogue, Berner Kunstmuseum, Berne 1947.
1976
John Russell and Andrew Wilton, Turner in Switzerland, Zurich 1976, p.57 reproduced, as ‘Rosenlaui’.
1976
Andrew Wilton, Turner und die Schweiz, exhibition catalogue, Kunsthaus, Zürich 1976 (no individual catalogue entry).
1977
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolors: An Exhibition of Works Loaned by The Trustees of the British Museum, exhibition catalogue, Cleveland Museum of Art 1977, p.12.
1992
David Hill, Turner in the Alps: The Journey through France & Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, p.118 reproduced, as ‘The Lower Glacier, Grindelwald, with the Eiger’.
1997
David Blayney Brown, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Evelyn Benesch and others, Joseph Mallord William Turner, exhibition catalogue, Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna 1997, pp.138–9 reproduced in colour.
1997
David B[layney] Brown, Yasuhide Shimbata and Hideko Numata, J.M.W. Turner 1775–1851: A Tate Gallery Collection Exhibition, exhibition catalogue, Yokohama Museum of Art 1997, pp.58–9 reproduced in colour.
1998
David Blayney Brown, Turner in the Alps 1802, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1998, pp.170–1 reproduced in colour.
1999
David Blayney Brown, Turner et les Alpes 1802, exhibition catalogue, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny 1999, pp.170–1 reproduced in colour.
2008
Anna Poznanskaya, Ian Warrell, Mathew Imms and others, ¿¿¿¿¿¿ [Turner], exhibition catalogue, Pushkin Museum of Art, Moscow 2008, p.51 reproduced in colour.
2009
Fan Di’an, Ian Warrell, Matthew Imms and others, Turner from the Tate Collection, exhibition catalogue, National Art Museum of China, Beijing 2009, p.43 reproduced in colour.
Turner’s label for this drawing is inscribed ‘Les Glaces de Grindelwald’. Rather than drawn on the spot, the view of the glacier and surrounding forests below the Eiger seems to have been worked up from a sketch, inscribed ‘Grin’, in the Rhine, Strassburg and Oxford sketchbook (Tate D04768; Turner Bequest LXXVII 29) also used in 1802. John Russell and Andrew Wilton remark its ‘virtuoso mastery of the monochrome medium’1 with dampened black chalk used to set out the darker passages. The dead tree stumps in the foreground are not present in the first sketch, and are added here to give drama and a bleak sublimity to the scene. Despite this emphasis, no more finished version of the subject is known. David Hill has suggested that Turner was ‘slightly overwhelmed’ by the scenery of Grindelwald.2
Writing of this drawing in the catalogue for Marlborough House, where it was displayed with Fallen Trees... from the same sketchbook (D04531; Turner Bequest LXXIV 38), John Ruskin observed that the glaciers were ‘out of their place in our tour; but it well that we should see them, and the shattered trunks beneath’ as an antidote to the ‘meek classicism’ of subjects in the Val d’Aosta exhibited from the same source; ‘No hope of taming the Alps, or softening them, in these.’ He continued: ‘I cannot make out, in the sketch of Grindelwald, where [Turner] has got to in the valley, or whether he means the upper white peaks for Alp or glacier. If he intends them for Alp, they are exaggerated, – if for ice, I do not understand how he has got pines to come between the two masses.’3
Verso:
Blank, inscribed perhaps by a later hand in pencil ‘21’
David Blayney Brown
September 2011
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘The Lower Glacier, Grindelwald, with the Eiger 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www