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 > St Gothard and Mont Blanc Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lake Thun, with the Niesen 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lake Thun, with the Niesen’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Recto:
Lake Thun, with the Niesen 1802
D04636
Turner Bequest LXXV 44
Pencil and black chalk with rubbing out on white wove paper prepared with grey wash, 315 x 473 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘44’ and blue ink ‘29’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXV 44’ bottom left, descending vertically
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Turner’s label for this drawing, also numbered ‘29’, reads ‘Ville de Thun’. For his excursion on Lake Thun in 1802 see drawings in the Lake Thun sketchbook, for example Tate D04717; Turner Bequest LXXVI 60, a view from the landing stage at Neuhaus at the eastern end of the lake where Turner disembarked for Unterseen. The landing place commands a view over the lake towards the Niesen similar to the one drawn here; the mountain is on the left. As shown in the Lake Thun sketch and a coloured drawing usually thought to have originated in the present sketchbook (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester),1 Turner’s pause here coincided with a storm, which must account for the turbulent sky in this drawing, with its swirling cloud and perhaps lightning.
For another view of the lake from Neuhaus from this sketchbook see D04638; Turner Bequest LXXV 46. David Hill notes that there was a ‘cabaret’ or shelter by the landing stage, from which Turner ‘made a number of sketches’.2
1
However, Peter Bower has recognised that two drawings thought to come from this sketchbook are on different paper; see Introduction to the sketchbook.
2
David Hill, Turner in the Alps: The Journey through France & Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, p.109.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
October 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Lake Thun, with the Niesen 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 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-thun-with-the-niesen-r1146503, accessed 26 April 2024.