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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Switzerland 1802 > St Gothard and Mont Blanc Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The River Arve, with Mont Blanc in the Distance 1802

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The River Arve, with Mont Blanc in the Distance’ 1802
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Recto:
The River Arve, with Mont Blanc in the Distance 1802
D04619
Turner Bequest LXXV 27
Pencil, black chalk, watercolour and gouache on white wove paper prepared with grey wash, 315 x 473 mm
Stamped in black ‘LXXV 27’ bottom left, descending vertically, and again bottom right
Blind-stamped with the Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Finberg’s identification of the River Arve and Mont Blanc is preferable to that of ‘Dent du Midi, end of Lake Geneva’ used when the watercolour was shown at the National Gallery. The location is perhaps near St Martin. Gerald Wilkinson, while noting that the watercolour is faded, praises its ‘immense breadth and subtlety of tone’, adding; ‘Like all [Turner’s] best work it is an honest drawing with no special striving for effect – and he is quite undaunted by the difficulties of taking in such a large expanse of country.’1
1
Wilkinson 1974, p.49.
Verso:
Blank

David Blayney Brown
October 2011

How to cite

David Blayney Brown, ‘The River Arve, with Mont Blanc in the Distance 1802 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2014, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-river-arve-with-mont-blanc-in-the-distance-r1146489, accessed 11 February 2025.