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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Scotland 1831 > Rokeby and Appleby Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mountains, Perhaps Around St Johns-In-the-Vale 1831

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mountains, Perhaps Around St Johns-In-the-Vale’ 1831
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 19 Recto:
Mountains, Perhaps Around St Johns-In-the-Vale 1831
D25559
Turner Bequest CCLXIV 19
Pencil on white wove paper, 74 x 94 mm
Inscribed in red ink by John Ruskin ‘19’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIV – 19’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the sketchbook turned in various directions are rough, rapidly executed, sketches of mountains, probably made on-the-move. The sketch made at the fore-edge of the page with the book turned to the left shows a valley with ruins in the foreground. This is somewhat reminiscent of St Johns-in-the-Vale as depicted on folio 29 verso (D25580) and in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border sketchbook (Tate D25819; Turner Bequest CCLXVI 30). The mountains sketched on this page and folio 18 verso (D25558) may therefore be the ridges that flank the vale to the west and east which include Helvellyn.

Thomas Ardill
May 2010

How to cite

Thomas Ardill, ‘Mountains, Perhaps Around St Johns-In-the-Vale 1831 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2010, 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-mountains-perhaps-around-st-johns-in-the-vale-r1133919, accessed 19 September 2024.