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 55 Verso:
Mountains ?in the Dolomites 1840
D32370
Turner Bequest CCCXX 55a
Pencil on white wove paper, 89 x 149 mm
Partial watermark ‘J H’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?Rásé]’ bottom left, and ‘T[...]’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry including his readings of Turner’s notes (‘“Rásé (?)” and “T...”’): ‘Russa or Rasun betwn St. Lorenzo & Toblach’1 (Dobbiaco). This would be the Rasun-Anterselva (Rasen-Antholz) district east of Brunico (Bruneck; see folios 34 verso–35 verso (D32328–D32330), although Turner’s inscriptions are far from clear and the rugged valley lacks any clear landmarks to link it to that particular locality.
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).2 See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the likely overall route between Bregenz and Venice.3
At the bottom centre, a peak is carried over from the mountain view on folio 56 recto opposite (D32371).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p.1031; see also his similar note in a standard copy in the same collection, p.1031.
2
See Finberg 1909, II, pp.1030–2.
3
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-r1196604, accessed 24 September 2024.