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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1830-35 Annual tourist > Southern Germany, Austria and Venice ... > Zirl and the Alps near Innsbruck; ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck 1833

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck’ 1833
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck 1833
D33846
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 158v
Chalk and pencil on grey wove paper, 189 x 141 mm
Inscribed in pencil ‘233 | O’ top right, ascending vertically
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This is one of twenty-eight sketches of mountain scenes (some including castles and other buildings) on the rectos and versos of sixteen pieces of grey paper torn carefully from a single sheet; they were likely all made in the vicinity of Innsbruck within a short period around 23 September 1833, when Turner was travelling back from Venice towards the end of his tour, as discussed in the Introduction to the present subsection.
Among them are three views of the late-Baroque Kalvarienberg Church (1803–5)1 to the north, on its steep crag north-east of Zirl, about seven miles west of Innsbruck, each drawn with the sheet turned vertically; see also D33841 and D33852 (CCCXLI 155v, 161v). The others are from closer to the foot of the hill and the gorge below, and do not show include the scattered structures shown here in the foreground. The small arched feature immediately to the left of the church is a proscenium-like shrine containing a sculpture group of the Crucifixion. D33849 (CCCXLI 160) shows the west end of the church and the shrine from a higher viewpoint.
There is some white chalk highlighting on the hillsides, and around some of the features towards the bottom, along the Ehnbach stream. The recto (D33845) is a horizontal view of nearby Burg Fragenstein, under which other views in the vicinity are noted.
1
See ‘Kalvarienberg Chapel Zirl’, TouristLink, accessed 10 May 2019, https://www.touristlink.com/austria/kalvarienberg-chapel-zirl/overview.html.
Technical notes:
There is some brown staining.

Matthew Imms
May 2019

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Kalvarienberg Church above Zirl, in the Alps near Innsbruck 1833 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2019, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, April 2023, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-kalvarienberg-church-above-zirl-in-the-alps-near-r1204276, accessed 28 December 2024.