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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Castle on rock’): ‘?Trostburg’1 and ‘Tronsburg (Trostburg) between Klausen & Bolzano’.2 Made with the page turned horizontally, this is the most detailed study in the present sketchbook of the medieval Castel Trostburg (now a museum), high above the east bank of the River Isarco (Eisack) at Ponte Gardena (Waidbruck); see also folios 59 verso, 60 recto and likely 60 verso (D31712, D31714–D31715). The view is from the valley, looking south-east, and the craggy hillside is now thick with trees.

Ponte Gardena is roughly ten miles north-east of Bolzano (Bozen; see under folio 1 verso (D31598), and about three south-east of Chiusa (Klausen) and the Sabiona monastery (see under folio 61 recto; D31716) on the way to Bressanone (Brixen; see folio 62 verso; D31719). Compare the similar sketch in the Vienna up to Venice book (Tate D31536; Turner Bequest CCCXI 61a), made from slightly further south on Turner’s outward journey.