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 Wassen: the Village, Bridge and Church 1802

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Wassen: the Village, Bridge and Church’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 53 Recto:
Wassen: the Village, Bridge and Church 1802
D04645
Turner Bequest LXXV 53
Pencil and black chalk on white wove paper prepared with grey wash, 315 x 473 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘10’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘LXXV 53’ bottom left descending vertically
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram bottom right of centre
This quick sketch and another in this sketchbook (D04646; Turner Bequest LXXV 54) have traditionally been kept together and were displayed together in the touring Fourth Loan Collection. They clearly represent the same village with a Baroque church, chalets and bridge over a deep gorge. Described by Finberg as near Chamonix, this village is actually Wassen, which Turner passed through on his tour of the St Gotthard Pass. Turner’s label for the present drawing, which shares with it the number ‘10’, is ‘St Gothard’ and that for D40646 reads both ‘St Gothard’ and ‘Wasen’. For Turner’s visit to the St Gotthard Pass and Reuss gorge in 1802 see Introduction to the sketchbook and notes to D04628; Turner Bequest LXXV 36.
Verso:
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David Blayney Brown
October 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘Wassen: the Village, Bridge and Church 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-wassen-the-village-bridge-and-church-r1146509, accessed 25 April 2024.