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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Tour to the Alps 1836 > Separate Sheets Associated with the 1836 ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Mole and Lake Geneva from above Perle du Lac 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Mole and Lake Geneva from above Perle du Lac’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Mole and Lake Geneva from above Perle du Lac 1836
D34195
Turner Bequest CCCXLII 11
Gouache and pencil on paper, 157 x 239 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLII–11’ bottom right
Blind stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This study relates to Turner’s 1836 tour of the Alps, which he made in the company of the wealthy Scottish landowner H.A.J. Munro of Novar; for more information, see the Introduction to this section.
As the Turner scholar David Hill has noted, the sheet shows Lake Geneva (or Lac Leman) from above Perle du Lac, apparently from the gardens of a villa.1 Turner sketched deftly in pencil, adding white highlights that stand out on the mid-tone paper; this appears brown today, but was originally grey (for more information, see the Technical Notes below). Turner made a related pair of colour studies, Tate D36058 and D36236 (Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 212 and 374), from a similar, but possibly slightly lower, viewpoint.
1
Hill 2000, p.268.
Technical notes:
The paper historian Peter Bower has established that the paper support used was originally grey in colour, the present brown shade the result of light exposure.1 The paper is of Italian origin, made at the Fabriano mill on Lake Maggiore; Hill surmises that perhaps Turner purchased it in Geneva; certainly Turner also used it elsewhere during the 1836 tour.2
1
Ibid, p.268.
2
Ibid, p.268.
Verso:
Blank

Elizabeth Jacklin
August 2019

How to cite

Elizabeth Jacklin, ‘The Mole and Lake Geneva from above Perle du Lac 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-mole-and-lake-geneva-from-above-perle-du-lac-r1204585, accessed 18 May 2024.