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 and Valleys, ?between Trieste and Graz 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Mountains and Valleys, ?between Trieste and Graz’ 1840
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 52 Recto:
Mountains and Valleys, ?between Trieste and Graz 1840
D30100
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 52
Pencil on cream wove paper, 198 x 127 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman’
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘G[...]’ top right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘52’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 52’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are three studies here, separated by vertical and horizontal pencil lines. At the top is a rapid study focusing on two distinctive mountain peaks, which are shown again at right-angles towards the bottom right. At the bottom left, the other way round again, is a broad valley.
The first of these studies is labelled with a scrawled word beginning with ‘G’, perhaps ‘Gratz’. 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 and Valleys, ?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-and-valleys-between-trieste-and-graz-r1196950, accessed 25 April 2024.