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 A Ruined Castle among Mountains ?in the Dolomites 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Ruined Castle among Mountains ?in the Dolomites’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 42 Recto:
A Ruined Castle among Mountains ?in the Dolomites 1840
D32343
Turner Bequest CCCXX 42
Pencil on white wove paper, 149 x 89 mm
Partial watermark ‘& C’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘42’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXX – 42’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner has used the page both ways up for fluid sketches of what is likely the same castle from different angles, dwarfed by the mountainous setting. The same ruined building appears to feature on the verso and on folios 43 recto and verso (D32344–D32346).
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, ‘A Ruined Castle among Mountains ?in the Dolomites 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-a-ruined-castle-among-mountains-in-the-dolomites-r1196577, accessed 25 April 2024.