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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Seven Sketches of Views from the Simplon Road; Including One of Feriolo 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Seven Sketches of Views from the Simplon Road; Including One of Feriolo’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 80 Recto:
Seven Sketches of Views from the Simplon Road; Including One of Feriolo 1819
D14298
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 79
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 111 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Ferolo’ bottom right of second right-hand sketch from top. Also ‘[...] | with 2 arms’ and [?Mele]’ within fourth sketch from top
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘79’ top left, ascending left-hand edge and ‘284’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIV 79’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner left Lake Maggiore at Baveno and from here took the road north-west into the Swiss Alps towards the Simplon Pass (for a full discussion see the introduction to the sketchbook, and also the introduction to the Passage of the Simplon sketchbook, Tate, Turner Bequest CXCIV). This page contains seven distinct landscape views, all of which are likely to relate to Turner’s journey along the Simplon road.1 The schematic nature of the drawings suggests that the artist was sketching on the move and their appearance is also consistent with the jolting movement of a diligence, a public carriage used in northern Italy. The views are too rough to be conclusively identified. However, an inscription by Turner indicates that one is a view of Feriolo, a village approximately a mile and a half north-west of Baveno.
Further sketches documenting the route between Baveno and Domodossola can be found on folio 80 verso (D14299; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 79a).

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

1
See Crimi 2009, p.66.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Seven Sketches of Views from the Simplon Road; Including One of Feriolo 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-seven-sketches-of-views-from-the-simplon-road-including-one-r1142819, accessed 18 April 2024.