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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > History Painting c.1799-1807 > Calais Pier Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Composition study for 'Lake of Geneva with Mont Blanc from the Lake'; a Group of Figures c.1799-1805

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Composition study for 'Lake of Geneva with Mont Blanc from the Lake'; a Group of Figures’ c.1799-1805
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 81 Recto:
Composition study for ‘Lake of Geneva with Mont Blanc from the Lake’; a Group of Figures c.1799–1805
D05061
Turner Bequest LXXXI 159
Black and white chalks and ink on blue laid paper, 436 x 271 mm
Watermark: Strasburg lily
Inscribed by Turner in ink ‘L’ Geneva’ centre right, ascending vertically
Inscribed in pencil ‘159’ top right, upside down
Stamped in black ‘LXXXI–159’ top right, upside down
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the chalk landscape study is similar to the one immediately adjacent on folio 80 verso opposite (D05060; Turner Bequest LXXXI 158). For other studies in this book for the watercolour of about 1805, Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven),1 see under folio 8 verso (D04917; Turner Bequest LXXXI 16). This one is unusual in taking a more elevated viewpoint, so that the curve of the lake shore occupies the centre rather than the bottom of the composition, and the whole subject is extended upwards; this squarer format recurs in the drawings on the verso (D05062; Turner Bequest LXXXI 160). Turner abandoned this scheme in the finished work.
Above left of the landscape and made with the page turned horizontally, the unrelated ink figure subject is difficult to decipher; it shows a tangle of bodies, possibly round a galloping horse, possibly among clouds. It is perhaps related to The Army of the Medes Destroyed in the Desart by a Whirlwind,2 a lost Biblical painting shown at the Royal Academy in 1801 for which a firmly identifiable drawing is on folio 84 recto (D05067; Turner Bequest LXXXI 165).

Andrew Wilton
May 2013

1
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.342 no.370, reproduced.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, pp.13–15 no.15.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Composition study for ‘Lake of Geneva with Mont Blanc from the Lake’; a Group of Figures c.1799–1805 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-composition-study-for-lake-of-geneva-with-mont-blanc-from-r1178265, accessed 30 June 2024.