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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > Tour to the Alps 1836 > Val d'Aosta Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Four Sketches at Vevey, Bonneville and Faucigny 1836

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Sketches at Vevey, Bonneville and Faucigny’ 1836
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 35 Recto:
Four Sketches at Vevey, Bonneville and Faucigny 1836
D29100
Turner Bequest CCXCIII 35
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 190 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Vevey’, ‘Mole’, ‘Blanc’, ‘Faucigny’, ‘Rushes[?]’
Inscribed, possibly by John Ruskin, in blue ink ‘35’ bottom left, inverted, and ‘320’ top left, inverted
Stamped in brown ‘CCXCIII 35’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains four sketches, drawn with the page held upright and working down the page from the outer edge:
i. (top) ‘Vevey’, from the mouth of the river, looking out over the lake. A colonnade to the left.
ii. Bonneville, from the Geneva road, looking towards the town and bridge. In this, Turner was revisiting a subject that he had sketched in 1802 (Courtauld Galleries, London),1 which formed the basis of subsequent studio works.
iii. ?Bonneville, looking out over the Chateau.
iv. Chateau of ‘Faucigny’, that is the tower at Roche sur Foron, near Bonneville, with The ‘Mole’ directly behind and ‘Rushes[?]’ in the foreground. Turner is mistaken in his identification of Mont ‘Blanc’, which is not visible from this part of the Arve Valley.

David Hill
June 2010

1
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.340 no. 355.

How to cite

David Hill, ‘Four Sketches at Vevey, Bonneville and Faucigny 1836 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-four-sketches-at-vevey-bonneville-and-faucigny-r1144647, accessed 14 January 2025.