Joseph Mallord William Turner The Pic de l'Oeillette, Gorges du Guiers Mort, Chartreuse; Looking back to St Laurent du Pont 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Pic de l’Oeillette, Gorges du Guiers Mort, Chartreuse; Looking back to St Laurent du Pont 1802
D04882
Turner Bequest LXXIX H
Turner Bequest LXXIX H
Pencil, watercolour and gouache with scratching and rubbing out on white wove paper prepared with a grey wash, 565 x 728 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXIX H’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘LXXIX H’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1908
National Gallery, London, 1908 (as ‘A Road between Mountains’).
1947
William Turner 1775–1851: Die Ausstellung wurde von der Tate Gallery für den British Council organisiert, Berner Kunstmuseum, Berne, December 1947–February 1948 (70, as ‘A Mountain Pass’).
1974
Turner 1775–1851, Royal Academy, London, November 1974–March 1975 (60, as ‘A Road among Swiss Mountains’).
1976
Turner und die Schweiz, Kunsthaus, Zürich, October 1976–January 1977 (14).
1989
Turner: The Second Decade: Watercolours and Drawings from the Turner Bequest 1800–1810, Tate Gallery, London, January–March 1989 (12).
1998
Turner in the Alps 1802, Tate Gallery, London, November 1998–February 1999, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny, March–June 1999 (17).
2011
William Turner. Maler der Elemente / Turner and the Elements, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg, June–September 2011, Muzeum Narodowe, Krakow, October–January 2012, Turner Contemporary, Margate, January–May 2012 (9).
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.211, LXXIX H, as ‘A Road among Mountains’.
1910
Charles Lewis Hind, Turner’s Golden Visions, London and Edinburgh 1910 and 1925, p.266.
1947
[Humphrey Brooke], William Turner 1775–1851: Die Ausstellung wurde von der Tate Gallery für den British Council organisiert, exhibition catalogue, Berner Kunstmuseum, Berne 1947, cat.no 70, as ‘A Mountain Pass’.
1974
Martin Butlin, Andrew Wilton and John Gage, Turner 1775–1851, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy, London 1974, p.46, as ‘A Road among Swiss Mountains’.
1976
John Russell and Andrew Wilton, Turner in Switzerland, Zurich 1976, pp.50–1 reproduced in colour.
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, p.82.
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.
1990
Peter Bower, Turner’s Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1787–1820, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1990, pp.86–7.
1992
David Hill, Turner in the Alps: The Journey through France & Switzerland in 1802, London 1992, pp.40 reproduced in colour, 169.
1998
David Blayney Brown, Turner in the Alps 1802, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1998, pp.72–3 reproduced in colour.
1999
David Blayney Brown, Turner et les Alpes 1802, exhibition catalogue, Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny 1999, pp.72–3 reproduced in colour.
2011
Inés Richter-Musso, Ortrud Westheider and others, William Turner. Maler der Elemente, exhibition catalogue, Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg 2011, pp.93, 106 reproduced in colour.
This colour study was made on one of the large loose sheets of grey-washed English paper that Turner took with him to France and Switzerland in 1802. One of only two of these sheets to have been worked up in colour (the other being D04887; Turner Bequest LXXIX M) it shows how Turner rubbed out the grey wash to expose the original white as highlights of sunshine on road or rock and the white of the clouds.
Formerly thought by John Russell and Andrew Wilton to depict the Dazio Grande on the southern side of the St Gotthard Pass, with Piz Sole beyond,1 the subject was identified by David Hill as originating in Turner’s trip into the Chartreuse.2 Along with several drawings from the smaller Grenoble sketchbook (for example Tate D04527; Turner Bequest LXXIV 34) it depicts the limestone needle, the Pic de l’Oeillette, beside the road along the Gorges du Guiers Mort to the Monastery of the Grande Chartreuse. The Pic is seen near the centre, at a distant corner of the road running in the direction of the village of St Laurent-du-Pont. Hill suggests that the figure seated on a boulder, near three mules, is the guide who escorted Turner and his traveller Newbey Lowson on their tour, waiting while they sketched.
Technical notes:
For the paper and preparation see D04875.
Verso:
Blank, laid down
David Blayney Brown
January 2012
How to cite
David Blayney Brown, ‘The Pic de l’Oeillette, Gorges du Guiers Mort, Chartreuse; Looking back to St Laurent du Pont 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, September 2014, https://www