Joseph Mallord William Turner Lago Maggiore c.1828
Joseph Mallord William Turner,
Lago Maggiore
c.1828
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Lago Maggiore c.1828
D25155
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 33
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 33
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 311 x 585 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘33’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 33’ bottom right
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below right of centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘33’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 33’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Exhibition history
1934
Display of Watercolours from the Turner Bequest, Tate Gallery, London, March 1934–May 1937 (no catalogue, but numbered II:30).
1947
Turner 1775–1851: Tentoonstelling in het Stedelijk Museum te Amsterdam georganiseerd door de Tate Gallery voor de British Council, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 1947 (59, as ‘Italiaans landschap met Bergen in het vershiet’, c.1820–30).
1947
William Turner 1775–1851: Die Ausstellung wurde von der Tate Gallery für den British Council organisiert, Berner Kunstmuseum, Bern, December 1947–February 1948 (59, as ‘Italienische Landschaft mit Berghintergrund’, c.1820–30).
1948
Turner 1775–1851: Tentoonstelling van schilderijen ingericht door de Tate Gallery voor The British Council in het Ministerie van Openbaar Onderwijs van Belgie, Palais voor Schone Kunst, Brussels and Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Liège, March–April 1948 (59 as ‘Italiaans landschap met bergen in het vershiet’, c.1820–30).
1948
Turner 1775–1851: Exposition de peintures organisée par la Tate Gallery pour le British Council, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, ?March 1948 (59, as ‘Paysage italien avec lointains montagneux’, c.1820–30).
1951
Aquarelle aus dem Turner-Nachlass im Britischen Museum veranstaltet vom British Council, Düsseldorf, Wiesbaden, Mannheim, Munich, Nuremberg: September or October 1950–March 1951, and September 1951–April 1952 (18, as ‘Italienische Landschaft mit Bergen in der Ferne’, c.1820–30).
1961
J.W.M. [sic] Turner 1775–1851: Watercolours: On Loan to the National Gallery of Victoria on the Occasion of its Centenary from the Turner Bequest by Courtesy of the Trustees and Director of the British Museum, London, with the Assistance of the British Council, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, September–October 1961, National Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, October–November (21, reproduced, as ‘View in Italy with Distant Mountains’, c.1820–30).
1964
Loan of Turner Watercolours from the British Museum, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, December 1964–January 1965, University of Nottingham Art Gallery January–March(no catalogue).
1975
Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London, May 1975–February 1976 (144, reproduced, as ‘A North Italian lake’, ?c.1828).
1976
Turner und die Schweiz, Kunsthaus, Zürich, October 1976–January 1977 (35, as ‘A North Italian Lake’, ?1828).
2002
Turner Watercolours, August 2002–May 2003 (no catalogue).
References
1820
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.II, p.817, CCLXIII 33, as ‘North Italian lake’, c.1820–30.
1828
Andrew Wilton, Turner in the British Museum: Drawings and Watercolours, exhibition catalogue, Department of Prints and Drawings, British Museum, London 1975, p.94 no.144, reproduced, as ‘A North Italian lake’, ?c.1828.
1997
Eric Shanes, Turner’s Watercolour Explorations 1810–1842, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1997, pp.29, 98 Appendix I ‘Italy’, 99 Appendix I ‘Literary and Book Illustrations’.
2006
Federico Crimi, ‘J.M.W. Turner e il Verbano: Sulle vedute del porta di Arona e dell’Isola Bella’, Verbanus, no.27, 2006, p.192 note 25, reproduced p.193 (colour).
2009
Federico Crimi, ‘J.M.W. Turner e il Verbano: Repertorio’, Verbanus, no.30, 2009, p.[75] no.5.2, as ‘Probabile veduta di Arona dall’alto (a) con il porto murato e (b) panorama del lago’.
Finberg proposed the subject of this ‘colour beginning’ as a ‘North Italian Lake’.1 Andrew Wilton suggested that ‘it may have emerged from Turner’s preparations for the watercolour of Arona on Lake Maggiore’2 (private collection),3 made in about 1828. Eric Shanes has concurred, dating this study to about 1819, ‘far in advance of the ... watercolour’, without further comment,4 but evidently in relation to Turner’s first visit to Italy in that year, when he visited the town, on the western shore of the south end of the lake, affording dramatic views northwards to the Alps.
There is a pencil study of the walls and towers around Arona’s old harbour, which do not survive, in the Passage of the Simplon sketchbook (Tate D16939; Turner Bequest CXCIV 26a), and an unrelated study of the town in the contemporary Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore sketchbook (Tate D14323–D14324; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 91a–92). The composition of the watercolour appears to be something of a capriccio, with the vantage point shown as an elevated area with trees introduced in the right foreground, and the towers at the harbour entrance much more prominent at the centre of the design than the relatively inconspicuous structures indicated here.5
Along with many watercolours connected with the ongoing Picturesque Views in England and Wales (see the ‘England and Wales Colour Studies c.1825–39’ and ‘England and Wales c.1826–38’ sections) the Lake Maggiore view was among three Italian subjects exhibited by Charles Heath at London’s Egyptian Hall in the summer of 1829, apparently intended for a complementary Picturesque Views in Italy project due for publication in 1830, which came to nothing.6 One of the subjects had already appeared in 1828’s Keepsake, and the two others followed in the 1829 edition, this one appearing as Lago Maggiore (Tate impressions: T05106, T06139; see the Introduction to the present section).
Tate D25487 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 364) is another colour study for the subject, with less prominent buildings, and a balustrade defining the foreground. Wilton compared the present work with Tate D25301 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 179),7 which may show a different aspect of the lake; see also Tate D25140 (Turner Bequest CCLXIII 18). Both are dated to about 1828 in the ‘Colour Studies’ grouping of the ‘Italianate Landscapes and Classical Architecture c.1817–45’ section elsewhere in this catalogue. Despite Shanes’s suggestion of an earlier origin, as noted above, this sheet has also been placed here at about the same time, in line with the likely date of the finished design and work on other Keepsake subjects.
Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.384 no.730, as ‘Arona, Lago Maggiore’, reproduced, pl.203 (colour detail).
See transcript of MS handlist in John Gage, Collected Correspondence of J.M.W. Turner with an Early Diary and a Memoir by George Jones, Oxford 1980, p.[237]–8, with ‘Lago Maggiore’ as no.36 (p.238), and Cecilia Powell, Turner in the South: Rome, Naples, Florence, New Haven and London 1987, pp.126–7.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed in pencil ‘28’ at centre; inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘AB 260 P | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘CCLXIII 33’ bottom right; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCLXIII – 33’ bottom centre; inscribed in pencil ‘D25155’ bottom right.
Matthew Imms
March 2017
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘Lago Maggiore c.1828 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www