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 > Paris, France, Savoy 2 Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Road to the Pass of Mont Cenis; and Figure Studies 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Road to the Pass of Mont Cenis; and Figure Studies’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 58 Verso:
?The Road to the Pass of Mont Cenis; and Figure Studies 1819
D14083
Turner Bequest CLXXIII 58 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 114 x 185 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two distinct sketches. The main drawing is a view of a road ascending a slope amidst mountains which probably depicts the Mont Cenis pass in the Cottian Alps. Part of the composition spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 59 (D14084). For a general discussion of Turner’s passage through the Alps see the Introduction to the sketchbook.
The artist has also used the left-hand side of the sheet with the sketchbook held vertically in order to make a series of figure studies. These include a woman with a bonnet who is leading a small child by the hand and a man wearing what appears to be a large bicorn hat.

Nicola Moorby
March 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘?The Road to the Pass of Mont Cenis; and Figure Studies 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-the-road-to-the-pass-of-mont-cenis-and-figure-studies-r1142942, accessed 23 April 2024.