Joseph Mallord William Turner The Mer de Glace, Looking up to the Aiguille de Tacul 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
The Mer de Glace, Looking up to the Aiguille de Tacul
1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Mer de Glace, Looking up to the Aiguille de Tacul 1802
D04615
Turner Bequest LXXV 23
Turner Bequest LXXV 23
Pencil, black chalk, watercolour and white gouache on white wove paper prepared with grey wash, 314 x 465 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXV 23’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXV 23’ 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 (325, as ‘Mer de Glace of Chamouni, Looking Up Stream’).
1937
Aquarelles de Turner, oeuvres de Blake/Englischen Graphiken und Aquarellen: W. Blake und J.M.W. Turner, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, January–February 1937, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna, March–April 1937 (90).
1937
Display of Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, December 1937–September 1939; Tate Gallery, London, continuing after the Second World War, 1945–December 1952 (no catalogue; frame 1:19, as ‘Mer de Glace, Chamonix’).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (31).
1976
Turner und die Schweiz, Kunsthaus, Zürich, October 1976–January 1977 (8).
1978
Turner 1775–1851, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, December 1978–February 1979 (6).
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).
1980
Turner and the Sublime, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, November 1980–January 1981, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, February–April 1981, British Museum, London, May–September 1981 (21).
1985
Turner Abroad: France; Italy; Germany; Switzerland, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, May–June 1985, Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane, July–August 1985, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, September–October 1985 (7).
1987
Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, April–October 1987 (no catalogue).
1998
Turner in the Alps 1802, Tate Gallery, London, November 1998–February 1999, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, March–June 1999 (35).
2008
Reisen mit William Turner: J.M.W. Turner: Das Liber Studiorum, Galerie Stihl, Waiblingen, May–September 2008 (no number).
References
1879
Philip Gilbert Hamerton, The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R.A., London 1879, p.185, as ‘Mer de Glace, Aiguille Charmoz’.
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, as ‘The Mer de Glace, Chamouni, Looking Up Stream’.
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.371, 624.
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.202, LXXV 23.
1965
John Gage, ‘Turner and the Picturesque – 1’, The Burlington Magazine, vol.107, February 1965, p.75 note 2.
1966
Jack Lindsay, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work: A Critical Biography, London 1966, pp.117, 236 note 25.
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.14.
1975
Malcolm Cormack, J.M.W. Turner, R.A. 1775–1851: A Catalogue of Drawings and Watercolours in the Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge, Cambridge 1975, p.35 note 6.
1975
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, pp.39–40 reproduced.
1976
John Russell and Andrew Wilton, Turner in Switzerland, Zurich 1976, p.48 reproduced in colour, as ‘Mer de Glace’, 137.
1978
John Sillevis, Nini Jonker and Hripsimé Visser, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Haags Gemeentemuseum, The Hague 1978, p.50 reproduced.
1980
Andrew Wilton, Turner and the Sublime, exhibition catalogue, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto 1980, p.118 reproduced.
1982
Andrew Wilton, Turner Abroad: France; Italy; Germany: Switzerland, London 1982, p.33 reproduced in colour pl.7.
1985
‘Turner’, The Great Artists: Their Lives, Works and Inspiration, vol.1, part 4, 1985, p.105 reproduced.
1985
Turner Abroad: France; Italy; Germany; Switzerland, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne 1985, p.33 reproduced in colour pl.7.
1987
[Andrew Wilton], The Turner Collection in the Clore Gallery: An Illustrated Guide: Published to Celebrate the Opening of the Gallery by Her Majesty The Queen, 1 April 1987, London 1987, pp.106, 107 reproduced in colour.
1987
Andrew Wilton, Turner Watercolours in the Clore Gallery, London 1987, pp.48–9 reproduced in colour pl.17.
1990
David Blayney Brown, The Art of J.M.W. Turner, London 1990, pp.150, 151 reproduced.
1992
David Hill, Turner in the Alps: The Journey through France & Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, pp.63 reproduced in colour, 65, 168.
1996
Gillian Forrester, Turner’s ‘Drawing Book’: The Liber Studiorum, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1996, p.112.
1998
David Blayney Brown, Turner in the Alps 1802, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1998, pp.110–11 reproduced in colour.
1999
David Blayney Brown, Turner et les Alpes 1802, exhibition catalogue, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny 1999, pp.110–11 reproduced in colour.
2008
Joanna Selborne, Andrew Wilton and Cecilia Powell, Paths to Fame: Turner Watercolours from The Courtauld Collection, exhibition catalogue, Wordsworth Trust, Grasmere 2008, pp.78–9 note 7.
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, pp.30 reproduced in colour, 138.
Described by John Russell and Andrew Wilton as ‘one of the most austere of all Turner’s drawings of the Alps’,1 this view of the Mer de Glace looking up to Aiguille de Tacul seems never to have been adopted for a finished watercolour. Instead it served as the basis of the Liber Studiorum plate Mer de Glace –Valley of Chamouni – Savoy. Since, unusually, no intermediate study for this plate is known it would appear that Turner worked directly from the present drawing. The plate, which he etched and engraved himself, is notably direct, retaining the spontaneity and raw power of the on-the-spot drawing. In his book Modern Painters, John Ruskin singled it out as an example of Turner’s exceptional understanding of mountain geology while in 1880, in more idiosyncratic notes on Turner’s Swiss drawings, he thought the artist was ‘trying to make [the ice] look like sea’.2
Verso:
Blank
Inscribed ?by Turner in pencil ‘down Montanvert... Chamoni’ and by a later hand in pencil ‘6’
David Blayney Brown
November 2011
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘The Mer de Glace, Looking up to the Aiguille de Tacul 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www