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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern Italy or Switzerland c.1828-44 > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains c.1828-44

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains’ c.1828-44
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains c.1828–44
D34760
Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 306v
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 157 x 116 mm
Inscribed by ?Turner in pencil ‘No 1 | [?yzn Guy F]’ top left
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
These vigorously rendered mountainous subjects are unidentified, but may be in the north of Italy or neighbouring Switzerland; see the Introduction to this section for further brief discussion and dating. The significance of the inscription in the corner, which may not be by Turner, has yet to be deciphered.
There is another drawing on the recto (D34759; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 306); the views were made on one half of a folded sheet, with D34765 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 309) opposite the present sketch and D34766 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 309v) on its verso. For the relationship of these drawings to similar sheets, see the technical notes below.
Technical notes:
As discussed above, the present work is one of four accessioned drawings on a single folded sheet. Finberg listed other similar instances consecutively,1 making a total of twelve drawings of similar subjects made on three quarters (matching at the torn edges) of an original sheet measuring some 317 x 465 mm. The fourth quarter is yet to be identified, but the others are Tate D34755–D34758 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 304, 304v, 305, 305v), and Tate D34761–D34764 (Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 307, 307v, 308, 308v).

Matthew Imms
February 2016

1
Finberg 1909, II, pp.1135–6.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains c.1828–44 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-northern-italian-or-swiss-mountains-r1183081, accessed 09 May 2024.