Joseph Mallord William Turner Lake Thun from Neuhaus; Storm over the Lake 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 60 Recto:
Lake Thun from Neuhaus; Storm over the Lake 1802
D04717
Turner Bequest LXXVI 60
Turner Bequest LXXVI 60
Pencil on white laid paper, 156 x 201 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXVI 60’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXVI 60’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1904
National Gallery, London, various dates to 1904 (37a).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.205, LXXVI 60, as ‘Lake Thun’.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.47 under cat. no.68.
1979
Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p.342.
1992
David Hill, Turner in the Alps. The Journey through France and Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, pp.110 reproduced, 169.
1996
Gillian Forrester, Turner’s ‘Drawing Book’: The Liber Studiorum, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1996, p.62 under cat. no15.
1998
David Blayney Brown, Turner in the Alps 1802, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1998, p.166 under cat. no.59, p.168 under cat.no.60.
2007
James Hamilton, ‘The Ullens Collection: an Appreciation’, in Henry Wemyss and others, Important Turner Watercolours from the Guy and Myriam Ullens Collection, London (Sotheby’s) 2007, p.13.
2007
‘The Lake of Thun, Switzerland’, in Wemyss 2007, p.82.
Neuhaus was Turner’s landing place at the far end of Lake Thun. As David Hill notes, there was a small hut or ‘cabaret’ at the landing stage, where he paused to make some sketches, probably while sheltering from the storm seen here. Storm clouds, indicated by swift hatching, roll over the Niesen in the left distance and a single sharply curving line describes a bolt of lightning falling to the water in front of the Stockhorn on the right. To his artist-colleague Joseph Farington, Turner reported the impression made upon him by the ‘very fine Thunder Storms’1 he had experienced in the Swiss mountains, one which endured long enough also to be remembered by John Ruskin.2
The sketch formed the basis of a watercolour made for Walter Fawkes (on the London art market, 2007)3, in which the storm and lightning were developed to dramatic effect and, together with soldiers in the right foreground who might be unloading guns and shot, presumably alluded to the French occupation of Switzerland and to local resistance. Turner’s reworking for Fawkes of his sketch of the landing place at Fluelen on Lake Lucerne on folio 41 (D04698) contains a similar reference, in the form of a weeping woman. The view of Lake Thun also became a plate in the Liber Studiorum, with a soldier added to the centre foreground; Turner’s drawing for it is Tate D08119; Turner Bequest CXVI R).
Verso:
Blank
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘587’ top left, descending vertically
David Blayney Brown
October 2009
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘Lake Thun from Neuhaus; Storm over the Lake 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2009, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www