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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Venice up to Trento Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Primolano and the Valsugana 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Primolano and the Valsugana’ 1833
Folio 16 Verso:
Primolano and the Valsugana 1833
D31628
Turner Bequest CCCXII 16a
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Primolano’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Annotating a copy of his 1909 Inventory, Finberg later suggested the settings of the adjacent folios 14 verso and 15 verso–16 verso (D31624, D31626–D31628): ‘near Primolano, Val Sugana’.1 Indeed, the town itself is labelled as such in this instance.
Drawn with the page turned horizontally, this is the last of a sequence of sketches beginning on folio 13 verso (D31622–D31628), overlooking Primolano and its surroundings in a narrow, rugged part of the Valsugana section of the Brenta Valley; see also folio 21 recto (D31637). The viewpoints were likely along the series of hairpin bends known as the ‘Scala’ or ‘Scale’ leading down to the town from the north-east.
Like those on folio 15 verso and the recto (D31626–D31627), this is a laterally compressed study ranging south and west over Primolano, with fortifications high on the left, as seen in more detail on folio 14 recto (D31623), and the stepped profile of the cliff west-north-west of the town towards the right.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p.1005.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Primolano and the Valsugana 1833’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/primolano-and-the-valsugana-r1203826, accessed 01 April 2026.