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 > Rhine, Strassburg and Oxford Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Lake of Brienz 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Lake of Brienz’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 38 Recto:
The Lake of Brienz 1802
D04780
Turner Bequest LXXVII 38
Pencil on white wove paper, 154 x 240 mm
Inscribed in an unknown hand in pencil ‘38’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXVII – 38’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For Brienz see folio 34 of this sketchbook (D04774). The present view from the quay towards the Faulhorn range together with the other sketch from the water may have suggested a pair of watercolours recalling a day’s excursion on the lake, departing in the morning and returning in the evening. The sketch of the quay was realised in a finished watercolour dated 1809, commissioned by Sir John Swinburne (British Museum, London).1 Sir John may have made his choice from the more developed intermediate study in the Grenoble series (Tate D04536; Turner Bequest LXXIV 43). This was probably Sir John’s first commission from Turner. He was a close friend of Walter Fawkes, who perhaps introduced him to Turner and who bought the evening view of the lake. For Fawkes’s commissions of watercolours whose subjects originated in this sketchbook, see folios 24 and 36 (D04774, D04777).

David Blayney Brown
March 2004

1
Wilton 1979, p.343 no.386.

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The Lake of Brienz 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-the-lake-of-brienz-r1133484, accessed 26 April 2024.