J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Return from Italy Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner View of Mountains in ?Savoy; and Figure Studies at Le-Pont-de-Beavoisin 1820

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of Mountains in ?Savoy; and Figure Studies at Le-Pont-de-Beavoisin’ 1820
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 34 Recto:
View of Mountains in ?Savoy; and Figure Studies at Le-Pont-de-Beavoisin 1820
D16705
Turner Bequest CXCII 33
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 128 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘very warm vapour x’, ‘w’ and ‘Blue’ within landscape sketch. Also ‘Beauvoisin’ below figure studies, parallel with the right-hand edge
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘33’ bottom left, descending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CXCII 33’ bottom left, descending left-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two distinct groups of sketches. At the top of the sheet, with the sketchbook held horizontally, there is a view of mountainous landscape, probably in Savoy. Turner has annotated the composition with notes concerning the colours and atmospheric effects of the scene, for example, ‘Blue’ and ‘very warm vapour’. Meanwhile, the lower part of the sheet has been used with the sketchbook vertically in order to make a number of studies of figures seen at ‘Beauvoisin’, i.e. the town of Le-Pont-de-Beauvoisin which lies on the River Guiers, approximately twenty miles west of Chambéry (see the Paris, France, Savoy 2 sketchbook, Tate D14087; Turner Bequest CLXXIII 60a). These include a woman with a mob-cap holding a broom, and another figure leaning on a low wall or other surface.

Nicola Moorby
April 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of Mountains in ?Savoy; and Figure Studies at Le-Pont-de-Beavoisin 1820 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-view-of-mountains-in-savoy-and-figure-studies-at-le-pont-de-r1142605, accessed 19 April 2024.