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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Venice up to Trento Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Group of Buildings Including a Tower, Possibly at Bassano del Grappa; an Alpine Mountain Scene 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Group of Buildings Including a Tower, Possibly at Bassano del Grappa; an Alpine Mountain Scene’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 7 Verso:
A Group of Buildings Including a Tower, Possibly at Bassano del Grappa; an Alpine Mountain Scene 1833
D31610
Turner Bequest CCCXII 7a
Pencil on white laid paper, 109 x 203 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
With the page turned horizontally, the main subject is a cluster of buildings, with what may be a church tower above trees and fortifications or a castle above lower structures. It is possible that the buildings are some of the towers of Bassano del Grappa (see folio 8 recto opposite; D31611), but they are rendered too swiftly to support more than a tentative suggestion.
Overlapping at the right is a looser sketch of mountains, drawn at right-angles. Over half of the pages in this book comprise relatively slight sketches from Turner’s homeward route north through the valleys of the Alps via Trento, Bolzano (Bozen) and Innsbruck. As set out in the Introduction, although his overall itinerary is clear from many identified subjects, they were are not drawn in a single sequence, making the scenes between them difficult to place.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Group of Buildings Including a Tower, Possibly at Bassano del Grappa; an Alpine Mountain Scene 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-group-of-buildings-including-a-tower-possibly-at-bassano-r1203808, accessed 05 July 2024.