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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Passage of the Simplon Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Road within the ?Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Road within the ?Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Recto:
Road within the ?Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass 1819
D16917
Turner Bequest CXCIV 14 a
Pencil and grey watercolour wash on white wove paper, 121 x 195 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The details of this pencil sketch are extremely difficult to discern due, to the dark and uneven nature of the grey watercolour wash covering the page. However, the scene appears to depict a road entering a steep and narrow mountainous gorge, possibly the Gondo ravine (Gondoschlucht), near the Swiss/Italian border on the road to the Simplon Pass.
For a general discussion of Turner’s expedition to the Simplon Pass see the introduction to the sketchbook.

Nicola Moorby
April 2011

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Road within the ?Gondo Ravine, near the Simplon Pass 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2011, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-road-within-the-gondo-ravine-near-the-simplon-pass-r1132792, accessed 05 January 2025.