J.M.W. Turner, Lake Geneva, with the Dent d’Oche, from above Lausanne, c. 1841

Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner  (1775–1851)

Title: Lake Geneva, with the Dent d’Oche, from above Lausanne, Part of Lausanne Sketchbook

Date: 1841, Medium: Graphite and watercolour on paper

Dimensions: support: 235 x 338 mm

Collection: Tate

“An inveterate traveller, Turner visited Switzerland on his first continental tour in 1802, during the short-lived Treaty of Amiens. He was greatly inspired by the sublime qualities of the alpine landscape, although he did not return until 1836.

However during his later years he visited continental Europe regularly, travelling through Switzerland annually from 1841 to 1844. The resulting watercolours are acknowledged as some of his most important works; a final flourish in his extraordinary output.

An example of Ruskin’s occasionally idiosyncratic (and provocative) judgement can be found in his comments on this watercolour, which he thought was

‘Out and out the worst sketch in the whole series; disgracefully careless and clumsy, but too beautiful in subject to be left out. Interesting also in its noticing of the long cypress-like lines of reflection, cast down so unaccountably from the crags. I am nearly certain Turner made the sketch on account of the curious echo which these reflections give to the cypresses’.” 

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