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

Finberg later annotated his 1909 Inventory entry (‘Mountains. – “Silanio.” (Probably Sologna, 1 ½ miles past Bassano.)’); he corrected the second ‘o’ of ‘Sologna’ to ‘a’,1 while adding: ‘Solurn [sic] in the Adige Valley’.2 The Turner scholar C.F. Bell marked another copy with the same phrase.3 Finberg also suggested the settings of the sketches from here to folio 14 recto (D31615–D31623): ‘10–14. Prbly Val Sugana. Between Bassano & Primolano’.4

Drawn with the page turned horizontally, this slight view focuses on the profiles of a cluster of mountains; Finberg’s notes refer to two alternatives, at different stages of Turner’s homeward journey. Solagna, in the Brenta Valley near Bassano del Grappa (see folio 8 recto; D31611) is one possibility, with the Baroque campanile of its Santa Giustina church indicated to the north with a single stroke towards the right. The other is Salorno (Salurn), further on, in the Adige (Etsch) Valley between Trent and Bolzano (Bozen); there are clearly identified views at the other end of the sketchbook, on folios 84 recto and verso (D31760–D31761), where its castle is shown above the steep valley.

If either is intended by Turner’s label here, Solagna is perhaps more likely, particularly as it is mentioned in his fragmentary notes of Valsugana place names on the verso (D31616). 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 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.