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 a Picture of Hannibal Crossing the Alps c.1799-1805

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Study for a Picture of Hannibal Crossing the Alps’ c.1799-1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 20 Recto:
Study for a Picture of Hannibal Crossing the Alps c.1799–1805
D04940
Turner Bequest LXXXI 39
White chalk on blue laid paper, 436 x 271 mm
Watermarks ‘1794’ and ‘VI’
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–39’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the subject is continued on folio 19 verso opposite (D04939; Turner Bequest LXXXI 38). This is so slight a study that it would be difficult to interpret were it not for the artist’s inscription, which allows us to read a battle scene with distant cliffs, and to see in this the first tentative steps towards the great canvas of 1812, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps (Tate N00490).1 Another sketch which may relate to that work is on folio 17 recto (D04934; Turner Bequest LXXXI 33).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.88–90 no.126, pl.131 (colour).

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Study for a Picture of Hannibal Crossing the Alps c.1799–1805 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-a-picture-of-hannibal-crossing-the-alps-r1178144, accessed 24 April 2024.