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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Wales 1798 > Dynevor Castle Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Warriors Climbing Rocks 1798

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Warriors Climbing Rocks’ 1798
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 13 Recto:
Warriors Climbing Rocks 1798
D01484
Turner Bequest XL 13
Pencil and pen and ink on white wove paper, 135 x 95 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘13’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘XL – 13’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These studies, which include details of the calf of a leg and a foot, one in pencil, the other overdrawn in black ink, may have been copied from a picture by Salvator Rosa (1615–1673) or some other painter of ‘Sublime’ subjects. Alternatively, and perhaps more probably, they may be related to a historical composition planned by Turner in about 1798. Compare the studies of struggling soldiers on folio 6 verso (D01472).
They may all be associated with a projected picture of ‘Hannibal showing his Army the Fertile Plains of Italy’, inspired by the work exhibited by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797) under that title at the Royal Academy in 1776.1 A pencil sketch on folio 69 recto (D01676; Turner Bequest XL 67) has been thought to embody a preliminary idea for the subject. Nothing immediately resulted from these tentative thoughts, but in due course he produced one of his most celebrated pictures, the Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1810 (Tate N00490).2

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
See Kim Sloan, Alexander and John Robert Cozens: The Poetry of Landscape, New Haven and London 1986, pp.109–11.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.88–90 no.126, pl.131 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Warriors Climbing Rocks 1798 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2015, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-warriors-climbing-rocks-r1173721, accessed 20 April 2024.