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 ... > Trieste, Graz and Danube Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mountains with a Distant Tower, ?between Trieste and Graz 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mountains with a Distant Tower, ?between Trieste and Graz’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Recto:
Mountains with a Distant Tower, ?between Trieste and Graz 1840
D30098
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 51
Pencil on cream wove paper, 127 x 198 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[... ?T...]’ top right, and ‘[?Tower]’ above right of centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘51’ bottom left, descending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 51’ bottom left, descending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the annotated view down a mountain valley towards a roughly indicated tower is a typical ‘carriage sketch’. The confusion of the central passage is apparently a result of Turner’s hastily using the page the other way up for a view of mountains descending to a broad valley.
As set out in this sketchbook’s Introduction, the general flow of Turner’s itinerary is in reverse of the Turner Bequest foliation, and this page falls within a sequence between folios 55 recto and 49 recto (D30094–D30106) likely (with reservations) to show his route north-east between Trieste to Graz (see respectively under folios 57 recto and 41 verso; D30109, D30079) through the rugged terrain of modern-day Slovenia and southern Austria. See under D30094 for further discussion.

Matthew Imms
September 2018

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Mountains with a Distant Tower, ?between Trieste and Graz 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-distant-tower-between-trieste-and-graz-r1196948, accessed 18 September 2024.