Explorations in the footsteps of Turner, Cotman, Ruskin and others with Professor David Hill
This article is prompted by a watercolour that Turner made on his tour to the Alps in 1836. That tour was the subject of the exhibition Turner, Mont Blanc and the Val d’Aosta held at the Archaeological Museum in Aosta in 2000. At that time I identified its subject as the French town of Sallanches, … Continue reading Turner at Sallanches, 1836
On 10 July 2014 Christie’s in London will sell a Turner watercolour of Binger Loch and Mausethurm (lot 214, estimate £200,000 – 300,000). This is one of a series of fifty-one* watercolours that Turner made in 1817 when he made a tour of the river Rhine between Cologne and Mainz. On Turner’s return the whole … Continue reading Turner on the Rhine: Binger Loch and Mausethurm
Regular readers (!?) may be thinking that this site is becoming overly sublunary. This is the third article to follow Turner’s footsteps into the night. I ought to confess that I do have at least one other article to write on the theme, but that may wait a little. This one, however, follows hard on … Continue reading Turner in Switzerland #3: Zurich by Moonlight
REVISED VERSION WITH NEW PHOTOS, JUNE 2014 This article seeks to give some consideration to a well-known, but relatively-little-discussed watercolour by Turner, Lucerne by Moonlight at the British Museum, London (note 1). Given that it is widely considered to be one of the most important of a great late series of Swiss subjects from the … Continue reading Turner in Switzerland #2:Lucerne by Moonlight
Sotheby’s London sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on 6 February 2014 included as lot 140 a Turner watercolour identified as 'Swiss lake scene, possibly Brienz, c.1848' (1). This article can now offer an exact identification of the subject as the Lungernsee (2) and also propose a more precise date, relating it to Turner’s last … Continue reading Turner in Switzerland #1: The Lungernsee and Brunig Pass
My friends tell me that it’s not real work, not proper research; all this trotting off to places Turner might have been. It’s a bit like Richard Long expecting to make a living out of walking and camping holidays. My unappreciative chums may have a point, but I want to argue here that ‘real’ work … Continue reading Truanting with Turner: Dallam Tower and the Kent Estuary at Milnthorpe, Cumbria
Sublime Sites 