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 > Fort Bard Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches of Aosta 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches of Aosta’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Recto:
Two Sketches of Aosta 1836
D29330
Turner Bequest CCXCIV 63
Pencil on white wove paper, 104 x 148 mm
Watermarked ‘Fratelli’
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘63’ top left, running vertically, and with the Turner Bequest schedule number ‘357’ top right, running vertically
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIV 63’ top right, running vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two sketches:

i. (top) Aosta from the south, with the spire of Sant’Orso pointing directly to the summit of the Grand Combin in the background.
ii. (bottom, squeezed into the remainder of the page) The Ponte Suaz1 at Aosta from downstream towards Pollein looking up the Val d’Aosta to the Mont Paramont/Doravidi range above the Val Grisenche.
These two sketches are related to two larger pencil drawings, which record almost exactly the same views (Tate D34888, D34898; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 394, 404).

David Hill
June 2010

Revised by Matthew Imms
November 2022

1
Amended from ‘Suza’ (as sometimes given elsewhere in recent Turner literature), as kindly suggested from local knowledge by Elisa Yeuillaz in an email to Tate, 3 November 2022, also noting the French variation ‘Pont Suaz’.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Two Sketches of Aosta 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, revised by Matthew Imms, November 2022, 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-two-sketches-of-aosta-r1144880, accessed 12 May 2024.