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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Tour to the Alps 1836 > Val d'Aosta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Geneva from the West 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Geneva from the West’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 56 Verso:
Geneva from the West 1836
D29142
Turner Bequest CCXCIII 56
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘56’ top right and ‘320’ bottom right
Inscribed by an unknown hand in pencil ‘56’ right
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIII 56’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page is now bound as the verso, rather than the recto as described by Finberg. Drawn inverted in relation to the main numbered sequence of subjects in the sketchbook, the views records Geneva from above the Quai du Seujet, looking down on the River Rhône with its mills and the old pumping station. The subject is continued to the right on the adjacent page (D29141; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 55a). On the same visit to Geneva if not actually the same occasion, Turner sketched similar material but from a distinct viewpoint in a pencil sketch on brown paper (Tate D34185; Turner Bequest CCCXLII 1). There exists a watercolour sketch of Geneva from the West (private collection)1 perhaps from the same tour.
For notes on the Rhône at Geneva see D29140; Turner Bequest CCXCIII 55 in this sketchbook.

David Hill
June 2010

1
Christie’s sale, London, 24 November 1998, lot 95 (reproduced in colour).

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Geneva from the West 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-geneva-from-the-west-r1144689, accessed 26 April 2024.