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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner A View above Lake Lugarno, and Four Sketches of Lake Muzzano; Also Part of a View of Lugano 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 72 Verso:
A View above Lake Lugarno, and Four Sketches of Lake Muzzano; Also Part of a View of Lugano 1819
D14283
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 71 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 111 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘above Lake Lugano’ bottom right of top sketch, ‘[?Miazza]’ ‘road’, and ‘road’, within second sketch from top, ‘Lac Musngo’ and ‘Road’ within third sketch from top, and ‘woman cleaning [?fl...]’ and ‘Lac’ within fourth sketch from top
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner took a boat along Lake Lugano between Porlezza in the east and Lugano to the west, at which point he disembarked and crossed by road across a short strip of land to the westernmost tip of the lake at Ponte Tresa.1 The sketches on this page relate to that journey. The uppermost vista looks north-east across Lake Lugano from above Lugano itself, while the remaining studies drawn vertically on the sheet all appear to be variant views of the small lake of Muzzano.
Also on the page, in the bottom right-hand corner, is part of the landscape composition which has spilled over from the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 73 (D14284; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 72). The subject is a view of Lugano.

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

1
See Crimi 2007, pp.30–1.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘A View above Lake Lugarno, and Four Sketches of Lake Muzzano; Also Part of a View of Lugano 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-view-above-lake-lugarno-and-four-sketches-of-lake-muzzano-r1142804, accessed 19 March 2024.