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 and Castles ?in the Tyrol Alps 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mountains and Castles ?in the Tyrol Alps’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 26 Verso:
Mountains and Castles ?in the Tyrol Alps 1840
D32312
Turner Bequest CCCXX 26a
Pencil on white wove paper, 89 x 149 mm
Partial watermark ‘& C’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Dorf Goldoni at | Rear Reitsh Brdge]’ bottom left, ‘Mountain [Schs]’ bottom centre, ‘[...]’ right of centre, descending vertically, and ‘[?A...]’ centre right, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main drawing, at the left, was made with the page turned horizontally. It seems to show a castle on a crag in a mountain valley, perhaps with a detail of its keep below. The detailed inscription below has yet to be fully deciphered. Those around a second view, at right-angles on the right and apparently showing a different building, are unfortunately even more resistant. The first castle is perhaps shown again in a smaller drawing on folio 27 recto opposite (D32313).
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 See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the likely overall route between Bregenz and Venice.2

Matthew Imms
September 2018

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

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Mountains and Castles ?in the Tyrol 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-and-castles-in-the-tyrol-alps-r1196546, accessed 26 April 2024.