J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Mountains with a Castle or Town, ?between Trieste and Graz 1840

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 55 Recto:
Mountains with a Castle or Town, ?between Trieste and Graz 1840
D30106
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 55
Pencil on cream wove paper, 127 x 198 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘55’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXCIX – 55’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Drawn with the page turned horizontally, this rapid sketch is difficult to interpret in terms of the actual and relative scales of its various elements. Below a mountainous skyline, there seem to be buildings outlined on the right, while the arcs on the left may mark a coastline, road or river, perhaps with trees.
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 begins a sequence continuing to folio 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 Castle or Town, ?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-castle-or-town-between-trieste-and-graz-r1196956, accessed 28 March 2024.