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 The Papstl Monument along the Old Roman Road below Schönberg im Stubaital, with the Serles Mountain in the Distance 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Papstl Monument along the Old Roman Road below Schönberg im Stubaital, with the Serles Mountain in the Distance’ 1833
Folio 35 Recto:
The Papstl Monument along the Old Roman Road below Schönberg im Stubaital, with the Serles Mountain in the Distance 1833
D31665
Turner Bequest CCCXII 35
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
Partial watermark ‘C G’ (countermark)
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...]’ towards top left
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in black ink ‘35’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXII – 35’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This rolling scene was drawn with the page turned horizontally. Finberg later annotated his basic 1909 Inventory entry (‘Mountain scene’): ‘Unter Schonberg with Marble Tablet. – outside Innsbruck, on road to Trent. from Brennero or from Trento’.1 Schönberg im Stubaital is roughly five miles south of Innsbruck (see under folio 17 recto; D31629), with the Stubai Alps to its south-west, on Turner’s homeward route from Trento (see under folio 37 recto; D31669) via the Brenner Pass.
Finberg appears to be correct in his identification, although the immediate vicinity of the small stone monument is now wooded. It stands just behind a small hotel at the bottom end of the Burgweg, the old Roman road ascending to Schönberg above the Sill Valley, not far east of the later Stefansbrücke over the Ruetz. That bridge provides a clear view of the stark central peak of the Serles mountain about six miles to the south.
The modest classical monument, known as the Papstl, was erected in 1777 when the new road was constructed nearby, as noted in a long Latin inscription, with a small oval cartouche on the top commemorating a leg of the return journey of Pope Pius VI this way from Vienna and south over the Brenner in 1782;2 it has lost the stone ball finials apparently shown here at the corners. Two locals cross in the foreground, one perhaps pulling a barrow, as a slightly bathetic counterpoint to the history embodied by the monument.
1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p.1006; see also Finberg 1930, p.170.
2
For its history, image and location, see ‘Liste der denkmalgeschützten Objekte in Schönberg im Stubaital’, Austria-Forum, accessed 29 April 2019, https://austria-forum.org/af/AustriaWiki/Liste_der_denkmalgeschützten_Objekte_in_Schönberg_im_Stubaital and ‘History’ at Stefansbrücke Hotel/Gasthof, https://www.gasthof-stefansbruecke.at/en/geschichte.php.
Technical notes:
For more on this sketchbook’s crescent moon watermark and ‘C G’ countermark, see the technical notes to its Introduction.1

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
See also Bower 1999, p.58.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Papstl Monument along the Old Roman Road below Schönberg im Stubaital, with the Serles Mountain in the Distance 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/the-papstl-monument-along-the-old-roman-road-below-schonberg-im-stubaital-with-the-serles-r1203863, accessed 28 May 2025.