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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > France, Savoy, Piedmont Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Tour de St Michel from near Servoz 1802

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Tour de St Michel from near Servoz’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 1 Recto:
Tour de St Michel from near Servoz 1802
D04393
Turner Bequest LXXIII 1
Pencil on light grey-buff laid paper, 138 x 215 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘St Michael’, bottom right, and with accounts in pounds sterling (see main catalogue entry), bottom right, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘LXXIII 1’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s inscription has allowed David Hill to identity this subject.1 On the outward stage of his Alpine tour, on his way to Chamonix and Mont Blanc, Turner followed the Arve valley from Sallanches and took the old road to Servoz. The Tour de St Michel (today shrouded by trees and not the exposed landmark that Turner has drawn) watches over the entrance of the narrow gorge of Les Montées Pelissier. Mont Blanc appears here in the distance, obscured by cloud. Turner made two other sketches in this sketchbook (folios 61 and 63, D04458, D04461) and similar, larger views in his St Gothard and Mont Blanc sketchbook (Tate D04606, D04640; Turner Bequest LXXV 14, 48). The arithmetic, presumably related to Turner’s travelling expenses, is as follows:
7 10
3 15
___
11 5
1
Hill 2000, pp.36, 272.
Verso:
Blank, save for slight offsets in white chalk from folio 2 (D04394).

David Blayney Brown
June 2004

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Tour de St Michel from near Servoz 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2004, 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-tour-de-st-michel-from-near-servoz-r1133018, accessed 25 April 2024.