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

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 D33846 (CCCXLI 155v, 158v). The first is similar to this one, while the second is from further off in the same direction. There is a little white chalk highlighting on the hillside, and around the small building in the foreground, perhaps a mill; the ‘w’ in the foreground may indicate the water of the Ehnbach stream, highlighted in white on D33841. D33849 (CCCXLI 160) shows the church from a higher viewpoint, looking east.

The recto is D33851 (CCCXLI 161), where the horizontal subject is the nearby Burg Fragenstein; see the subsection Introduction for other subjects around Zirl.

Technical notes:

There is some brown staining.