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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Venice, Austria and Southern Germany ... > Rotterdam to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mountains with a Tower and a Steeple Below, in the Vorarlberg Alps 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mountains with a Tower and a Steeple Below, in the Vorarlberg Alps’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Recto:
Mountains with a Tower and a Steeple Below, in the Vorarlberg Alps 1840
D32277
Turner Bequest CCCXX 8
Pencil on white wove paper, 89 x 149 mm
Partial watermark ‘J H’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘8’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCCXX – 8’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
A long sequence of sketches, mostly characterised as ‘Mountains’ by Finberg (with occasional identifications and transcriptions of the place names marked by the artist), lies between folios 7 recto and 76 recto (D32275–D32411).1 After Bregenz (see under folio 2 verso; D32266), Turner took a south-easterly route towards Venice through the rugged Vorarlberg and Tyrol Alps of Austria via Landeck, into the Austrian territories of northern Italy and the Dolomites by way of Bolzano (Bozen) and Belluno (see the sketchbook’s Introduction).2
Between folios 7 recto and 10 recto (D32275–D32281) the route through Austria is presumably south-east through the Vorarlberg province from Bregenz towards Sankt Anton am Arlberg at the western end of Tyrol on folio 10 verso (D32282), the next subject to be readily identified by its inscription. In the present drawing, made with the page turned horizontally, the view is across a valley with a square tower (possibly a ruined castle) and what is probably a church spire in the middle distance. The same buildings may be shown on folio 7 verso opposite (D32276).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
See Finberg 1909, II, pp.1030–2.
2
See Cecilia Powell, Turner in Germany, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1995, pp.65, 81 note 9.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Mountains with a Tower and a Steeple Below, in the Vorarlberg Alps 1840 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, September 2018, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2019, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-mountains-with-a-tower-and-a-steeple-below-in-the-vorarlberg-r1196512, accessed 24 April 2024.