Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

Possibly Thomas Greenwood;
sale, London, Christie’s, 13 February 1875, lot 281, bt. Vokins (800 guineas);
W.G. Rawlinson, by 1902;
with Agnew’s, London;
from whom acquired by Reginald A. Tatton, 1917;
T.A. Tatton;
sale, London, Christie’s, 14 December 1928, lot 32, bt. Agnew’s;
with Agnew’s, London;
by whom sold to Miss Mabel Deakin (1892-1977), 1928;
by descent to the present owners

London, Agnew’s, Watercolours, 1923, no. 23;
London, Agnew’s, Turner, 1951, no. 95;
London, Agnew’s, Turner, 1967, no. 84;
The British Council, Zwei Jahrhunderte der Englische Malerei, 1969, no. 228;
Canberra, National Gallery of Australia & Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, J.M.W. Turner, 1996, no. 87;
on loan to Gloucester Museum and Art Gallery (1980-2016)

C. Lewis Hind, Turner's Golden Visions, 1925, pl. III (illustrated in colour);
A. Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, p. 477, no. 1473

For four consecutive summers, between 1841 and 1844, Turner travelled to Switzerland, the country that had enchanted him since 1802 and whose dramatic landscape continued to act as a powerful magnet now that he had reached his sixties. The watercolours made on and as a result of these late tours, have long been held in the highest regard and there are many who view them as the ‘climax of a lifetime devoted to the expression of light and colour in landscape.’¹

The present work dates from this time and is one of the last watercolours to remain in private hands that depict the mighty Rigi, the iconic mountain that was to so seduce Turner during the final decade of his life.²

During his Continental tours of the 1840s, Turner often based himself at Lucerne, the lakeside city that is conveniently positioned in the geographical centre of Switzerland, where he stayed at La Cygne, a hotel on the waterfront that boasted unprecedented views of Mount Rigi.

The mountain was a major tourist attraction for 19^th century travellers. Tourists referred to it as the ‘Queen of Mountains’ and many endured the strenuous trek to its summit (1,798 metres) in order to enjoy the extraordinary views.

Turner, however, is not known to have joined them and instead preferred to remain at La Cygne from where, brushes in hand, he observed the edifice under a myriad of atmospheric conditions and at varying times of the day. John Ruskin described the watercolours he made as ‘simple impressions… received from nature.’³ They were extraordinarily avant-garde and it has been suggested that Turner’s fascination with one particular subject and how it was affected by natural effects, looks forward to the great artists of the next generation such as Paul Cezanne and Claude Monet.

The present work was painted at dawn and, with the sun hidden behind it, the Rigi glows blue in the clear morning light. To the left, the twin spires of the city’s cathedral pierce the skyline, while to the right, across the reflective waters, the distant mountains are beginning to blush pink. In the foreground, a scattering of small boats bob, silently, near the shoreline.

Turner has perfectly captured the complex light effects and haze of the early morning and by studying works such as this, it is perhaps possible to understand Ruskin, who, while on his first tour of Switzerland his 1845, proclaimed that ‘Titian’s all very well, but I don’t see anything of him here. It’s all Turner and Turner, nobody else.’⁴

Throughout the first half of the 1840s, the mountain loomed large in Turner’s mind. There are, for instance, nine interpretations of it in the collection at Tate Britain. The present work is stylistically most comparable to three watercolours there, that have traditionally been dated to 1841/2: The Rigi from Küssnacht; The Rigi: Last Rays and Lucerne, with the Rigi.⁵

In 1842 Turner painted three large-scale ‘finished’ watercolours of the mountain. These were part of a set of ten watercolours of Switzerland and have since become known as The Blue Rigi (Tate Britain), The Red Rigi (National Gallery of Victoria) and The Dark Rigi (Private Collection). As their titles suggest, they present the subject at different moments in the day and all three have become icons of Turner’s art.

The present watercolour has traditionally been identified as a study for The Blue Rigi, which was famously acquired for the nation, having achieved a world-record price for a watercolour by Turner of £5.832 million at Christie’s in 2006.

In 1928 the present work was acquired from Agnew’s by Mabel Deakin, whose family ran a highly successful textiles firm in Bolton, Lancashire. She was an accomplished sculptress and during the 1930s and 1940s regularly exhibited at the Manchester Academy of Arts. In December 1937 she returned to Agnew’s and acquired two futher Turner watercolours: Knaresborough (see lot 358) and Jerusalem (see lot 359). All three of these exceptional works have descended in her family until this day. We would like to thank Ian Warrell for his help when cataloguing this work.  

<sup>1. I. Warrell, Through Switzerland with Turner, London 1995, p. 10
2. The others are: The Dark Rigi (A. Wilton, op. cit., no. 1532), The Rigi, Lake Lucerne: Sunset (no. 1472) and The Rigi, Lake Lucerne: Sunset (not recorded in Wilton). 
3. Ibid
4. D. Hill, op. cit., p. 127
5. Turner Bequest, Tate Britain, CCCLXIV 219, 220, 382</sup>