Joseph Mallord William Turner Bonneville and the River Arve from the Geneva Road, Looking East 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Bonneville and the River Arve from the Geneva Road, Looking East
1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Bonneville and the River Arve from the Geneva Road, Looking East 1802
D04599
Turner Bequest LXXV 7
Turner Bequest LXXV 7
Pencil, watercolour and gouache with scratching out on white wove paper prepared with grey wash, 314 x 472 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Bonneville’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘41’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXV 7’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Bonneville’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘41’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXV 7’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1878
National Gallery, London, various dates, 1878–1904 (323, as ‘Bonneville, Savoy’).
1975
Turner in the British Museum, May 1975–February 1976 (29, as ‘Bonneville’).
1976
Turner und die Schweiz, Kunsthaus, Zürich, October 1976–January 1977 (5).
1979
Turner’s First Visit to the Continent: Watercolours from the Turner Bequest Loaned by the British Museum, Tate Gallery, London, July–December 1979 (no catalogue).
1981
Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris, October 1981–January 1982 (16).
1983
J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, October 1983–January 1984 (94).
1985
Turner Abroad: France; Italy; Germany; Switzerland, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May–June 1985, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, July–August 1985, Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, September–October 1985.
1989
Turner: The Second Decade: Watercolours and Drawings from the Turner Bequest 1800–1810, Tate Gallery, London, January–March 1989 (11).
1998
Turner in the Alps 1802, Tate Gallery, London, November 1998–February 1999, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, March–June 1999 (22).
References
1879
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A., London 1879, pp.185–6, as ‘Bonneville, Savoy’.
1902
E.T. Cook (ed.), Ruskin on Pictures: A Collection of Criticisms by John Ruskin not heretofore Re-printed and now Re-edited and Re-arranged, vol.I, London 1902, p.170.
1904
E.T. Cook and Alexander Wedderburn (eds.), Library Edition: The Works of John Ruskin: Volume XIII: Turner: The Harbours of England; Catalogues and Notes, London 1904, pp.267, 624, as ‘Bonneville, Savoy’.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.201, LXXV 7, as ‘“Bonneville”’.
1924
Alexander J. Finberg, The History of Turner’s Liber Studiorum with a New Catalogue Raisonné, London 1924, p.xlvi.
1970
N.[Nicholas]A. Serota, ‘J.M.W. Turner’s Alpine Tours’, unpublished M.A. Report, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1970, p.18.
1974
Michael Kitson, Turner Watercolours from the Collection of Stephen Courtauld, London 1974, pp.2, 3–5.
1974
Gerald Wilkinson, The Sketches of Turner, R.A. 1802–20: Genius of the Romantic, London 1974, pp.45 detail reproduced in colour, 49.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, pp.38–9 reproduced.
1976
John Russell and Andrew Wilton, Turner in Switzerland, Zurich 1976, pp.135–7.
1977
Gerald Wilkinson, Turner Sketches 1789–1820, London 1977, pp.93–4 reproduced in colour, and dust jacket, reproduced in colour.
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.343.
1980
David Hill, Stanley Warburton, Mary Tussey and others, Turner in Yorkshire, exhibition catalogue, York City Art Gallery 1980, p.59.
1981
Lindsay Stainton in Maurice Guillaud and others, Turner en France: aquarelles, peintures, dessins, gravures, carnets de croquis / Turner in France: Watercolours, Paintings, Drawings, Engravings, Sketchbooks, exhibition catalogue, Centre Culturel du Marais, Paris 1981, pp.71 reproduced in colour Fig.124, 74.
1982
Andrew Wilton, Turner Abroad: France; Italy; Germany; Switzerland, London 1982, p.34 reproduced in colour pl.9.
1983
Andrew Wilton, in John Gage, Jerrold Ziff, Nicholas Alfrey and others, J.M.W. Turner, à l’occasion du cinquantième anniversaire du British Council, exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris 1983, p.178 reproduced.
1984
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.35.
1985
Turner Abroad: France; Italy; Germany; Switzerland, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1985, p.34 reproduced on colour pl.9.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner in his Time, London 1987, p.66.
1988
Andrew Wilton and Lowell Libson, The Fitch Collection: A Record of the Major English Watercolours and Drawings Collected by Dr Marc Fitch, exhibition catalogue, Leger Galleries, London 1988, under no.38, reproduced Fig.7.
1989
Robert Upstone, Turner: The Second Decade: Watercolours and Drawings from the Turner Bequest 1800–1810, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1989, p.23 reproduced.
1992
David Hill, Turner in the Alps: The Journey through France & Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, pp.48 reproduced, 168.
1996
Gillian Forrester, Turner’s ‘Drawing Book’: The Liber Studiorum, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1996, p.126.
1998
David Blayney Brown, Turner in the Alps 1802, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1998, pp.84–5 reproduced in colour.
1999
David Blayney Brown, Turner et les Alpes 1802, exhibition catalogue, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny 1999, pp.84–5 reproduced in colour.
2000
David Hill, Joseph Mallord William Turner: Le Mont-Blanc et la Vallée d’Aoste, exhibition catalogue, Museo Archeologico Regionale, Aosta / Musée Archéologique Régional, Aoste 2000, pp.64, 269.
2001
Ian Warrell, ‘Bonneville’, in Evelyn Joll, Martin Butlin and Luke Herrmann eds., The Oxford Companion to J.M.W. Turner, Oxford 2001, p.28.
2007
James Hamilton, ‘The Ullens Collection: An Appreciation’, in Henry Wemyss (ed.), Important Turner Watercolours from the Guy and Myriam Ullens Collection, Sotheby’s, London 2007, p.14 reproduced in colour Fig.2.
2008
Gillian Forrester, David Hill, Matthew Imms and others, Reisen mit William Turner: J.M.W. Turner: Das Liber Studiorum, exhibition catalogue, Galerie Stihl, Waiblingen 2008, p.166.
For travellers of Turner’s generation coming from northern Europe, Bonneville was a major staging post on an Alpine tour and provided some of their first impressions of mountain grandeur. As well as sketches in his France, Savoy, Piedmont sketchbook (Tate D04440–D04443; Turner Bequest LXXIII 46–48) Turner made this larger, coloured study from the Geneva road, downstream on the River Arve, looking eastwards to the town and bridge of Bonneville with Mont Blanc in the distance. Classically composed and pastoral in character,1 it proved to be one of the most productive of all the drawings he brought back from his 1802 tour.
He listed ‘Bonneville. done’ among subjects commissioned or in hand, at the front of his album of 1802 dawings (see Technical notes to the Grenoble sketchbook, Tate, Turner Bequest LXXIV)
He listed ‘Bonneville. done’ among subjects commissioned or in hand, at the front of his album of 1802 dawings (see Technical notes to the Grenoble sketchbook, Tate, Turner Bequest LXXIV)
Turner showed two paintings, Bonneville, Savoy, with Mont Blanc and Châteaux de St Michael, Bonneville, Savoy at the Royal Academy in 1803. The pictures (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, Connecticut and Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas, Texas) have often been confused and in a lecture in 1977 and subsequently in print, Andrew Wilton reversed the identifications and provenances tentatively given by Butlin and Joll.2 The Dallas picture, which following Wilton’s logic must be the one bought by the banker Samuel Dobree, is closest to the present drawing. The composition was repeated in another version shown in 1812 (Philadelphia Museum of Art)3 as well as two finished watercolours, one for Walter Fawkes (on the London art market in 2007)4 and another for Sir John or Edward Swinburne (British Museum, London).5 The Liber Studiorum plate Bonneville, Savoy also descends from this view although it is closest to the 1812 picture; Forrester considers it ‘uncertain’ whether Turner’s study for the plate (Tate D08164; Turner Bequest CXVIII J) anticipates or postdates the later oil.6
A drawing of a slightly different view of Bonneville with the road prominent in the left foreground and castle towers on the right (Courtauld Gallery, London) was long thought to have originated in this sketchbook, but has been found by Peter Bower to be on a different paper also used in 1802.7 It served as the basis of the Yale picture and led via a colour study (Tate D04901; Turner Bequest LXXX H) to a finished watercolour (private collection).8 Doubts might arise as to the origin of another view of Bonneville associated with this sketchbook (British Museum, London)9 as it has no visible watermark. The composition was repeated in a picture for Fawkes (currently untraced).10
There are several splashes of reddish watercolour on this sheet, unrelated to this subject but of a colour used in other works from this sketchbook.
‘...lyrique et pastoral plutôt que d’une majesté écrasante...’; Wilton in Gage, Ziff, Alfrey 1983, p.178.
Andrew Wilton, ‘Turner at Bonneville’, in John Wilmerding (ed.), Essays in Honor of Paul Mellon, New Haven 1986, pp.402–27; Butlin and Joll 1984, pp.35–6 no.46, pp.39–40 no.50.
Verso:
Blank
Inscribed by a later hand in pencil ‘10’
David Blayney Brown
October 2011
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘Bonneville and the River Arve from the Geneva Road, Looking East 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www