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 Alpine Mountain Scenes, Perhaps in the Valsugana, with a Baroque Church Tower 1833

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Alpine Mountain Scenes, Perhaps in the Valsugana, with a Baroque Church Tower’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 11 Recto:
Alpine Mountain Scenes, Perhaps in the Valsugana, with a Baroque Church Tower 1833
D31617
Turner Bequest CCCXII 11
Pencil on white laid paper, 203 x 109 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘R[...]’ above centre, possibly marking a road or river
Inscribed by C.F. Bell in black ink ‘11’ top left, upside down
Stamped in black ‘CCCXII – 11’ top left, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Annotating a copy of his 1909 Inventory, Finberg later suggested the settings of folios 10 recto–14 recto (D31615–D31623): ‘10–14. Prbly Val Sugana. Between Bassano & Primolano’.1 There are views of Bassano del Grappa on folio 8 recto (D31611) and Primolano on folios 13 verso–16 verso (D31622–D31628).
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, there are three rapidly rendered mountain scenes, possibly made successively while passing through a town or village with a Baroque church tower, seen on the right in the first two sketches.
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 rugged scenes between them difficult to place, although Finberg’s suggestion of the winding Valsugana section of the Brenta Valley is a possibility here and on adjacent pages.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

1
Undated MS note by Finberg (died 1939) in interleaved copy of Finberg 1909, Prints and Drawings Room, Tate Britain, II, opposite p.1005.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Alpine Mountain Scenes, Perhaps in the Valsugana, with a Baroque Church Tower 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-alpine-mountain-scenes-perhaps-in-the-valsugana-with-a-r1203815, accessed 05 July 2024.