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

As established by Cecilia Powell,1 this as a view across the roofs of Bolzano (Bozen), the capital of Alto Adige province (otherwise Südtirol or South Tyrol), on the fringes of the Dolomites in northern Italy (then under Austrian rule), where Turner paused on his meandering route south-eastwards towards Venice. Before Powell’s identification, the subject had traditionally been called ‘Meran’ (Merano), without further comment.2 There is an unrelated view of that town, about twenty miles north-west of Bolzano, in the 1840 Rotterdam to Venice sketchbook (Tate D32322; Turner Bequest CCCXX 31a).

A single pencil drawing in the vicinity of Bolzano in the same book (D32318; CCCXX 29a) shows rural wayside crosses labelled ‘Botzen’ (then the conventional English spelling). A page including various small mountain sketches, the only non-Venetian subjects in the contemporary Venice and Botzen book (Tate D31922; Turner Bequest CCCXIII 67), is inscribed in the same way; as discussed there, they were possibly made in retrospect.

While effectively remaining a study, the present work is considerably more detailed than a loose, relatively undeveloped variant, otherwise comparable in its format and media (D32189; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 10). As Powell has observed, they were likely ‘both drawn and coloured in [Turner’s] lodgings, for these provided him with as fine a view of the town itself and the Dolomites as any artist could desire’.3 The north side of Bolzano Cathedral’s steeply pitched roof is shown toward the right, with its single Gothic steeple on the near side. There is no indication of the roof’s current strident black and white diamond pattern.

While there is often evidence in local journals of Turner’s presence at particular hotels on this tour, none is yet known in this instance, but he perhaps stayed at the first mentioned in the 1840 edition of John Murray’s guidebook: the ‘Kaiser Krone [imperial crown], including a theatre and ball-room, excellent’.4 The hotel does not survive, but it is shown on old town plans where a restaurant with a similar name now stands off the Via della Mostra; this would correlate with the alignments here, suggesting a view to the south-south-east beyond the spire, with the Colle (Kohlern) mountain on the left and the open space of the market-place north-east of the cathedral suggested in the middle distance.

In his 1974 discussion of 1840 Venice subjects on grey paper, Andrew Wilton compared them to ‘views on the Rhine and at Botzen, on paper of the same type and size, [Tate D36149–D36158] Turner Bequest CCCLXIV–292 to 301)’;5 see also the technical notes below. As well as this sheet and others now assigned to the return leg of this tour, that sequence also includes three long-recognised colour studies of valley scenes near Bolzano (D36154–D36156; CCCLXIV 297–299). Each has a pencil sketch on the verso, respectively D40188, D40177 and D40178, the first and third around Bolzano, and D40177 of Bregenz, Austria, from the earlier stages of this route. In his examination of Turner’s colour studies of Bregenz, Edward Yardley linked the present sheet (as ‘Meran’) and the three others, dating them to 1840 by association,6 although a year later Hardy George was still tentatively considering the four in relation to Turner’s 1833 tour to Venice.7 As he returned from the city that year, the artist had made numerous pencil drawings of the mountains and castles in the area; see the Introduction to the Venice up to Trento sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCCXII).

Technical notes:

Cecilia Powell has observed that the ‘blues and plum-pinks’ used here and in D36189 (see above), ‘are common in Turner’s views of Venice on grey paper painted shortly afterwards’, and that in this case he ‘used pen and red ink to delineate carefully the delicate openwork of the church spire and special features of a number of other buildings he could see from his window’;1 this is in combination with white highlights where they catch the sunlight, lending them a sculptural quality among the softer washes of the landscape background and foreground shadows.

Powell has noted this as one of the many sheets of grey 1829 Bally, Ellen and Steart paper used on Turner’s 1840 tour, neatly torn as eighths or sixteenths of the overall sheet, with dimensions of around 190 x 280 or 140 x 190 mm, and variously worked with pencil, watercolour and gouache; see the technical notes in the overall Introduction for others.2

In this case part of the watermark is evident at the edge of the sheet, reading ‘B E | 1’. Powell recognised that this work ‘originally formed part of the same large sheet as TB CCCLXIV 372 [Tate D36234], a pencil scene of a mountain valley lightly washed in with similar colours, which bears the other half of the watermark (i.e. ...[E]&S / ...[8]29).’3 At time of writing it awaits further research, retaining Finberg’s title and broad dating: ‘Swiss Lake Scene (?Neuchatel)’, ‘after about 1830’.4

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘27’ centre, descending vertically, and ‘CCCLXIV.295’ bottom centre; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCLXIV – 295’ bottom right.