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 Mont Blanc, the Brenva Glacier and the Entrance to the Allée Blanche from near Entreves 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mont Blanc, the Brenva Glacier and the Entrance to the Allée Blanche from near Entreves’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 66 Verso:
Mont Blanc, the Brenva Glacier and the Entrance to the Allée Blanche from near Entreves 1802
D04468
Turner Bequest LXXIII 66a
Pencil on grey-buff laid paper, 215 x 138 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘haute Cham | near Courmayeur’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXIII 66a’ top right, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For Entreves and the Allée Blanche, near Courmayeur, see folios 65 and 65 verso of this sketchbook (D04465, D04466). Here, Turner is positioned on the slopes of the Val Ferret looking towards Entreves and past the head of the Val d’Aosta to the Brenva glacier with the Aiguille Noire above and Mont Blanc to the right. This drawing, made with the sketchbook inverted and extending across folio 67 (D04469), and a similar double page spread on folios 67 verso–68 (D04470–D04471) annotated with the initial ‘F’ served as the basis of the finished watercolour made about 1810 (Courtauld Galleries, London)1 and perhaps another (untraced).2 The initial would suggest that the patron was Walter Fawkes but David Hill proposes instead that it could have been Sir William Pilkington of Chevet Hall, near Wakefield.3 It is in fact unclear whether Turner made one or two watercolours of this composition since two, of slightly different sizes, are recorded as having been in the Dillon collection.

David Blayney Brown
June 2004

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.344 no.393.
2
Ibid., p.344 no.394.
3
David Hill, Joseph Mallord William Turner: Le Mont-Blanc et la Vallée d’Aoste, exhibition catalogue, Museo Archeologico Regionale, Aosta 2000, p.278.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Mont Blanc, the Brenva Glacier and the Entrance to the Allée Blanche from near Entreves 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-mont-blanc-the-brenva-glacier-and-the-entrance-to-the-allee-r1133097, accessed 25 April 2024.