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

Engraved:
Etching and mezzotint by J.M.W. Turner and Charles Turner, ‘LITTLE DEVILS BRIDGE over the RUSS above ALTDORFT SWISS^D.’, published Charles Turner, 29 March 1809

Turner had visited the Swiss Alpine site on his first Continental tour in 1802; the bridge over the Reuss, south of Altdorf near Wassen (towards the St Gotthard Pass), is also known as the Pfaffensprung (Priest’s Leap). Rawlinson noted it had ‘been for many years unused. A new one has been substituted higher up’1 and the area has since been exploited for hydroelectric works.2 There are two pencil drawings of the bridge in the Lake Thun sketchbook (Tate D04732, D04733; Turner Bequest LXXVI 72, 73). The first is a vertical sketch with its lower half given over to the rocky chasm, of necessity only implied in the horizontal Liber design; for the second, the page was used in ‘landscape’ format, and the drawing is closer to the final composition. The ledge and trees (though not the skeleton) in the foreground of the design appear to derive from a sketch from further away and below, in the St Gothard and Mont Blanc sketchbook (Tate D04628; Turner Bequest LXXV 36), while watercolour studies in the latter book include similar combinations of battered trees and rocks (for example Tate D04607, D04610, D04627; Turner Bequest LXXV 15, 18, 35).

The present work is one of several Liber designs based on sketches in the St Gothard and Mont Blanc sketchbook (see also Tate D08153, D08161, D08164; Turner Bequest CXVII Y, CXVIII J, Vaughan Bequest CXVIII G; and Tate N03631; in addition, Mer de Glace3 may have been etched directly from another page in the book). Mt St Gothard (Tate D08113; Turner Bequest CXVI L) and Devil’s Bridge, Mt St Gothard (Tate N03631), which was engraved but not published, show nearby sites, and the three compositions appear successively in Turner’s MS list of ‘Mountainous’ subjects (see below) suggesting that Turner considered them thematically linked.

In comparing the drawing with the print, Finberg observed:

As Gillian Forrester has noted, Turner sought to emphasise the harsh, ‘sharp and brilliant’ light in the subsequent print.5 Stopford Brooke described how ‘Solitary Desolation marks the deathfulnes of the Upper Alps by the skeleton of the mule set in the foreground with its skull couched like a dragon’s’, ⁶ and Gerald Finley has discussed the foregrounds of Turner’s Alpine scenes, using the present composition as an example of a type that, ‘unlike foregrounds in picturesque views, ... do not isolate the viewer from the scene; indeed, they beckon him; ... they transform the viewer from passive observer to threatened participant.’7

The composition is recorded, as ‘3[:] 4 Devils Bridge’, in the Liber Notes (2) sketchbook (Tate D12156; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 23a), in a draft schedule of the first ten parts of the Liber (D12156–D12158; CLIV (a) 23a–24a)8 dated by Finberg and Gillian Forrester to before the middle of 1808.9 It also appears later in the sketchbook, as ‘Little Devils Bridge’, in a list of ‘Mountainous’ subjects (Tate D12166; Turner Bequest CLIV (a) 28a).10

The Liber Studiorum etching and mezzotint engraving, etched by Turner and engraved by Charles Turner, bears the publication date 29 March 1809 and was issued to subscribers as ‘LITTLE DEVILS BRIDGE over the RUSS above ALTDORFT SWISS^D.’ in part 4 (Rawlinson/Finberg nos.17–21;11 see also Tate D08121, D08122, D08125, D08126; Turner Bequest CXVI T, U, X, Y). Tate holds impressions of the preliminary outline etching (Tate A00947) and the published engraving (A00948 and A00949). It is one of fourteen published Liber subjects in Turner’s ‘Mountainous’ category (see also Tate D08113, D08119, D08130, D08134, D08148, D08153, D08156, D08161, D08164, D08165; CXVI L, R, CXVII C, G, T, Y, CXVIII J, K, Vaughan Bequest CXVIII B, G).

In the 1909 Inventory, Finberg listed another work (since recorded as missing) after the present drawing, as Turner Bequest CXVI W: ‘W. Little Devil’s Bridge. (R. 19) Print of engraving. Exhibited drawings, No.567b, N.G.’12 It was later noted, as the ‘etched foundation coloured in sepia by J.M.W. Turner to guide the engraver’, in the typescript of works13 for the comprehensive Liber exhibition held at the Tate Gallery and the Whitworth Institute, Manchester, between 1921 and 1923. This two-stage method was used for other Liber compositions, such as Scene on the French Coast (Tate D08104, D08105; Turner Bequest CXVI C, D) and Bridge and Goats (Tate D08146, D08147; Turner Bequest CXVII R, S).

Thomas Lupton etched and engraved a facsimile of the print in 1858 as one of an unpublished series for the London dealer Colnaghi14 (see general Liber introduction). Frank Short included this composition15 among his Twelve Subjects from the Liber Studiorum of J.M.W. Turner, R.A. Etched and Mezzotinted by Frank Short (published by Robert Dunthorne of the Rembrandt Gallery, London, between 1885 and 1888), the first series of his Liber interpretations (Tate T05043;16 see general Liber introduction). In 1890, Turner’s Liber print was reproduced as a facsimile photogravure in the South Kensington Drawing-Book, with additional hand-engraving by Short.17

Technical Notes:

The sheet was possibly washed in the initial stages. There is some pencil sketching, though it was not followed very closely with watercolour washes and brushwork; scratching-out is particularly evident in the outlines of the bridge, silhouetted in a contre-jour effect, and in the trees and skeleton in the right foreground. The overall very warm brown of the composition comprises Indian red and burnt sienna shades.1

Verso:

Blank, save for inscriptions.

Inscribed in pencil ‘476’ centre
Stamped in black ‘[crown] | N•G | CXVI – V’ bottom left

There are abrasions where the sheet was formerly stuck down.