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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lake Geneva from near Vevey 1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lake Geneva from near Vevey 1802
D04576
Turner Bequest LXXIV 83
Pencil on greyish-buff laid paper, 214 x 282 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Vevay’ towards bottom right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘83’ bottom right
Stamped ion black ‘LXXIV 83’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Finberg listed this leaf as ‘part of a parcel labelled by Mr. Ruskin – “R. 277. Grenoble series. Inferior drawings.”’ The drawings in this group are pencil outlines, lacking the additions of chalk or gouache found elsewhere in the sketchbook. However, despite Ruskin’s stricture this sketch is quick rather than feeble and formed part of what David Hill describes as Turner’s ‘survey of the whole eastern end’ of Lake Geneva which led to the watercolour Lake of Geneva from above Vevey made c.1809/10 for Walter Fawkes (private collection).1 For another drawing from this sketchbook that appears to be part of the same ‘survey’ and is inscribed with the initial ‘F’ indicating Fawkes’s commission, see D04575; Turner Bequest LXXIV 82.
1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.344 no.392.
Verso:
See D40197

David Blayney Brown
September 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Lake Geneva from near Vevey 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-lake-geneva-from-near-vevey-r1146441, accessed 19 September 2024.