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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > Grenoble Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Mountains Overlooking Lake Geneva 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Mountains Overlooking Lake Geneva’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?Mountains Overlooking Lake Geneva 1802
D04575
Turner Bequest LXXIV 82
Pencil on greyish-buff laid paper, 213 x 212 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘A’ bottom left and ‘F’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXIV 82’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg listed this as one of 22 leaves from this sketchbook found ‘in a parcel labelled by Mr. Ruskin – “M. 16. Leaves of S. 229. Laid down.” They have been mounted on cartridge by Mr. Ruskin.’ Evidently, Ruskin isolated these drawings because they were pencil outlines, without the additions of chalk or gouache found elsewhere in the sketchbook.
Turner’s subject is probably part of the mountainscape around the eastern end of Lake Geneva which he surveyed during his tour in 1802, as noted by David Hill.1 The initial ‘F’ indicates a commission from Walter Fawkes and thus probably a relationship to the background of Turner’s watercolour The Lake of Geneva from above Vevey made for Fawkes c.1809/10 (private collection).2 The ‘A’ might suggest another commission from the wine merchant John Allnutt (see also from this sketchbook D04571; Turner Bequest LXXIV 78).
1
David Hill, Turner in the Alps: The Journey through France and Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, p.95.
2
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.344 no.392.
Verso:
Laid down

David Blayney Brown
September 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘?Mountains Overlooking Lake Geneva 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-mountains-overlooking-lake-geneva-r1146440, accessed 25 April 2024.