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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Martigny: La Bâtiaz Overlooking a Street in the Town 1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Martigny: La Bâtiaz Overlooking a Street in the Town 1802
D04547
Turner Bequest LXXIV 54
Pencil, black chalk and white gouache on greyish-buff laid paper, 285 x 212 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 54’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
For Martigny subjects from this sketchbook see notes to D04494; Turner Beq uest LXXIV 2. The title ‘Martigny’ was given to this drawing by John Ruskin. Turner’s own label for it was probably the one inscribed ‘Le Chateaux de Martingny’ [sic] as it is the closest view of the Castle of La Bâtiaz on its rock overlooking the town. Evidently, the wet weather Turner observed on his descent to Martigny (see D04509; Turner Bequest LXXIV 16) has now cleared and townsfolk are resting against a wall in bright sunshine. Along with a quicker sketch of a street beneath the castle, with a procession (D04580; Turner Bequest LXXIV 87), this drawing served for Turner’s vignette Martigny made to illustrate Samuel Rogers’s Italy (1830); for the corresponding watercolour see Tate D27671; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 154. The vignette extends the view on the left to include the inn, La Cygne, where Turner stayed in Martigny, and the cabriolet he used on tour in 1802, taken from the sketch from this sketchbook (D40208).
Verso:
Laid down

David Blayney Brown
September 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Martigny: La Bâtiaz Overlooking a Street in the Town 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-martigny-la-batiaz-overlooking-a-street-in-the-town-r1146412, accessed 29 March 2024.