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 > Italian Guide Book Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Landscape with a Lake c.1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Landscape with a Lake’ c.1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Verso:
A Landscape with a Lake circa 1819
D13946
Turner Bequest CLXXII 8 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 99x 155 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Lake a [?...]’ within centre of sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view shows a landscape with a lake and sky, the location of which has not yet been identified. It may represent an Italian subject dating from Turner’s travels in 1819. However, the position of the sketch interrupts the continuity of Turner’s notes from Eustace’s A Classical Tour of Italy, suggesting that it could predate the artist’s use of the book as a repository for notes in preparation for his first trip to Italy.
The drawing includes a swift wavy line on the surface of the lake. This is a familiar gestural motif by Turner, representing a shorthand way of expressing the light of the setting sun reflected on water.

Nicola Moorby
July 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘A Landscape with a Lake c.1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2008, 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-a-landscape-with-a-lake-r1138767, accessed 22 November 2024.