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 > Passage of the Simplon Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Entrance to the Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Entrance to the Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
?Entrance to the Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass 1819
D16914
Turner Bequest CXCIV 13
Grey watercolour wash on white wove paper, 121 x 195 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘13’, bottom left, descending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CXCIV 13’ bottom left, descending left-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The pencil sketch on this passage is difficult to discern against the dark ground of the grey watercolour wash. However, the scene depicts a mountainous valley with an arched man-made structure visible at the centre of the composition. This represents one of five tunnels or galleries built at various points along the road to the Simplon Pass between Domodossola and Brig, probably the entrance to the ravine near Gondo, also known as the Galerie d’Algaby.1 The gallery had been constructed in order to make the road passable during heavy snowfall.
For a general discussion of Turner’s expedition to the Simplon Pass see the introduction to the sketchbook.

Nicola Moorby
April 2011

1
See a print by Gabriel Lory, Vue de la Galerie d’Algaby prise du côté du Vallais, from Voyage Pittoresque de Genè à Milan par le Simplon 1811, reproduced at http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=3295988&partid=1&searchText=simplon&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&numpages=10&images=on&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=2.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘?Entrance to the Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-entrance-to-the-gondo-ravine-near-the-simplon-pass-r1132789, accessed 10 May 2024.