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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Study for 'Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake' c.1802-5

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for 'Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake'’ c.1802-5
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Verso:
Study for ‘Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake’ c.1802–5
D04917
Turner Bequest LXXXI 16
Black and white chalks on blue laid paper, 271 x 436 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and ‘VI’
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–16’ top left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner produced two watercolours showing the view across the Lake of Geneva towards Mont Blanc, with the city of Geneva to the right: one, Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake, is a large work painted for Edward Lascelles in about 1805 (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven),1 the other a smaller paraphrase of the composition painted a year or two later, perhaps for Walter Fawkes (Salar Jung Museum, Hyderabad).2
This drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Turner clearly attached importance to the subject, which is studied repeatedly in this book, on folios 9 verso, 10 verso, 11 verso, 12 verso, 16 verso, 65 verso, 66 recto, 80 verso, and 81 recto and verso (D04919, D04921, D04923, D04925, D04933, D05030, D05031, D05060–D05062; Turner Bequest LXXXI 18, 20, 22, 24, 32, 128, 129, 158, 159, 160). It is one of his most serene views, and as the sequence of ideas in this book suggests, is closely linked with the subject of the large oil painting Sun Rising through Vapour; Fishermen Cleaning and Selling Fish, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1807 (National Gallery, London).3

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.342 no.370, reproduced.
2
Ibid., p.343 no.282, as untraced; see Wilcox 1986, pp.56–7, reproduced.
3
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.53–4 no.69, pl.79 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study for ‘Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake’ c.1802–5 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 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-study-for-lake-of-geneva-with-mont-blanc-from-the-lake-r1178121, accessed 26 April 2024.