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 ?in the Dolomites 1840

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mountains ?in the Dolomites’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 44 Recto:
Mountains ?in the Dolomites 1840
D32347
Turner Bequest CCCXX 44
Pencil on white wove paper, 149 x 89 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘44’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXX – 44’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner used the page both ways to make at least four sketches here. It is unclear whether the upper half is a single view or overlapping scenes; the main element appears to be a gorge with a sheer cliff on the left. Below are three more mountain scenes, with the one nearest the centre featuring a distant castle tower.
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 ?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-mountains-in-the-dolomites-r1196581, accessed 19 April 2024.