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 Bridge and Entrance to the Gallery of Gondo 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Bridge and Entrance to the Gallery of Gondo’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 28 Verso:
Bridge and Entrance to the Gallery of Gondo 1819
D16943
Turner Bequest CXCIV 28 a
Pencil and grey watercolour wash on white wove paper, 121 x 195 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject of this sketch is one of the most strikingly picturesque locations on the Simplon Pass route, the Gallery of Gondo (also sometimes known as the Grand Gallery), a tunnel built by Napoleon to facilitate the route for travellers within this part of the Alps.1 This view depicts the tunnel’s eastern entrance (on the Italian side) and the bridge built immediately beside it which spanned the small but dramatic falls of the Alpienbach (also known as the Fressinone or Frassinone). The artist has scratched out parts of the grey watercolour wash in order to depict the falling white torrents of the waterfall. For a fuller description and Turner’s numerous sketches of the Gallery of Gondo see folio 24 verso (D16933).

Nicola Moorby
May 2011

1
Compare the print after Major James Cockburn, Bridge and Gallery of Gondo, in Views to Illustrate the Route of the Simplon, London 1822, pl.XXIX. See also Crimi 2007, p.37 note 49.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Bridge and Entrance to the Gallery of Gondo 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-bridge-and-entrance-to-the-gallery-of-gondo-r1132818, accessed 19 September 2024.