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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Northern Italy or Switzerland c.1828-44 > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains c.1840-4

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains’ c.1840-4
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains c.1840–4
D34563
Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 180
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 95 x 153 mm
Partial watermark ‘atman | 837’
Blind-stamped ‘DOBBS | LONDON’ below crown within circle top left
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[...]’ towards bottom left
Inscribed in red ink ‘180’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLIV 180’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This mountainous subject is unidentified, but may be in the north of Italy or neighbouring Switzerland; see the Introduction to this section for further brief discussion and dating. The full watermark would evidently have been ‘J Whatman | 1837’, matching the ‘J Wh | 1’ on another sheet in this section (Tate D34596, D34597; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 197, 197v), and precluding a date before Turner’s being in the region in 1840. The embossed mark is perhaps that of Henry Dobbs, a London stationer active in various partnerships.1
There is are drawings of similar terrain on the verso (D34564; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV 180v).
Finberg noted: ‘(Nos. [Turner Bequest CCCXLIV] 174–226 were among the contents of a parcel endorsed by Mr. [John] Ruskin, – “B. 2. Forty-eight pieces of paper, some double or 4-ple. Pencil outline, same class as B. 1.”).’2

Matthew Imms
February 2016

1
See ‘Henry Dobbs (Biographical details)’, The British Museum, accessed 4 February 2016, http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/term_details.aspx?bioId=203947.
2
Finberg 1909, II, p.1123.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Northern Italian or Swiss Mountains c.1840–4 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-northern-italian-or-swiss-mountains-r1183050, accessed 23 November 2024.