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 The Mole and Mont Blanc from Perle du Lac, Geneva: Evening 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Mole and Mont Blanc from Perle du Lac, Geneva: Evening’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Mole and Mont Blanc from Perle du Lac, Geneva: Evening 1836
D36058
Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 212
Gouache and watercolour on paper, 215 x 323 mm Stamped in black ‘CCCXLIV–212’ bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘212’ bottom right
Watermark ‘CRESWICK | 1818’
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.
The present study is one of a number of Lake Geneva relating to the start of the tour, before Turner and Munro followed the Arve valley along to Chamonix; for more information, see the entry for D36109 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 262). As the Turner scholar David Hill has pointed out, a closely related study shows the same scene under slightly different light conditions (Tate D36236; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 374).1 In the present sheet, the scene is clothed in the warm colours of sunset, the snow-topped peaks seen in the distance.
1
Hill 2000, p.267.
Technical notes:
In this and a couple of related sheets, Turner achieved a soft, grainy watery effect, which can possibly be attributed to the notably rough grain of this paper, which was of a type Turner rarely worked on. The paper historian Peter Bower noted this and identified a watermark ‘CRESWICK | 1818’.1 The paper was made by Thomas Creswick, who specialised in distinct surfaces; as Bower also noted, his rough watercolour papers were favoured by Turner’s contemporary, Peter de Wint (1784–1849). Traces of stitch holes on the left hand edge of this sheet led to the suggestion it was pulled from a sketchbook.2
1
Bower 1999, p.108.
2
Ibid, p.108.
Verso:
Blank, save for inscriptions: inscribed in pencil ‘AB79 P’ bottom right; stamped in black with the Turner Bequest monogram and ‘CCCXLIV–212’ bottom right.

Elizabeth Jacklin
August 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘The Mole and Mont Blanc from Perle du Lac, Geneva: Evening 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-the-mole-and-mont-blanc-from-perle-du-lac-geneva-evening-r1204628, accessed 18 July 2025.