Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A.

In 1878 John Ruskin displayed his collection of watercolours by Turner at the Fine Art Society on Bond Street. The Eighth Group of the exhibition was entitled Morning, By the Riversides [1830-1840], and included a pair of watercolours simply called The Bridge. Ruskin commented on them as follows: ‘I am always in hopes of being told by some traveller where this bridge is; a very notable one over a wide river, by evidently an important city.’¹Despite this request for assistance in identifying the location depicted, the two works retained their generalised titles when they were put up for sale at Christie’s on 22 July 1882. They appeared there as two separate lots: 59, The Bridge; and lot 60, The Bridge: Evening. Ruskin’s editors, Cook & Wedderburn, believed that the pair were jointly sold for £126.² However, Graves’ auction records, indicates that the first item fetched £126, and was sold to Agnew (stock number 6636), whereas the second work reached £157.10s before being bought in.³ 

The watercolour discussed here was one of the two works in question and was catalogued by Andrew Wilton in his 1979 book as no. 1510, Swiss lake scene with bridge (“Bellinzona”). The second work - its pair - came to light again recently at the Sotheby’s sale on 9 July 2014, where it was identified for the first time as a view Looking down the Val d’Aosta towards Aosta and the Pont Suza.⁴ The provenance for that watercolour has so far only been traced back as far as the 1970s, but it is possible that it is the work in the 1882 sale, catalogued as lot 60. Its warm colouring, especially for the sunlight on the mountains above the bridge, would be consistent with the title The Bridge: Evening. If that assumption is correct, it remained in Ruskin’s collection after the sale in 1882 and was dispersed at a later date.

The 'Bridge' subject bought by Agnew’s in 1882 might then be the present work, which is another exciting rediscovery, and a more focused study of the Pont Suza, with the peaks leading to the Great St Bernard Pass beyond. Agnew’s subsequently sold it, on 27 February 1883, to Sir John William Ramsden, 5^th Bt (1831-1914). He was then the Liberal MP for the Eastern West Riding of Yorkshire, and was based in Huddersfield. The watercolour may have passed down to one of his three daughters, or to his son, his youngest child, Sir John Freschville Ramsden, 6^th Bt (1877-1958). But for the moment its history is obscure until it was sold at Sotheby's in 1964. There is, nevertheless, a reference to it (or the other view of Aosta, or perhaps to both), in Sir Walter Armstrong’s 1902 listing of Turner’s watercolours, though no details are given of its whereabouts at that time.

Both watercolours can be associated with the tour of the Val d’Aosta that Turner made in 1836, during which he was uncharacteristically accompanied by his friend and patron Hugh Andrew Johnson Munro of Novar (1797-1864). David Hill documented the journey in his exhibition at Aosta in 2000, and its accompanying book. The size of the paper used for this view and its pair is consistent with one of the formats Turner used to make colour sketches, many of which were painted on the spot, or developed shortly afterwards over pencil outlines. The two large pencil sketches Hill reproduced of Aosta both focus on the bridge, indicating that Turner devoted time to cross the river and climb above it to make a full study of the impact of its structure on the valley.⁵ He also began a new sketchbook while at Aosta, which also includes views of the fortifications and bell-towers of the city, and the Pont Suza, from the opposite side of the river, revealing how he skillfully condensed the panoramic studies of the scenery when painting the watercolours.⁶ 

We are grateful to Ian Warrell for his help when cataloguing this lot. 

1. Notes by Mr Ruskin Part I on his Drawings by the late J.M.W. Turner, R.A, Part II on his own handiwork illustrative of Turner, Fine Art Exhibition Catalogue, London 1878, p. 51 

2. E.T. Cook and A. Wedderburn (eds.), The Works of John Ruskin, 1904, vol. XIII, p. 454

3. A. Graves, Art Sales from early in the eighteenth century to early in the twentieth century, 1921, vol. III, p. 238

4. London, Sotheby’s, 9 July 2014, lot 158, £158,000, also see I. Warrell, Turner’s Sketchbooks, London 2014, p. 184

5. D. Hill, Joseph Mallord William Turner: Le Mont-Blanc et la Vallée d’Aoste, 2000, p. 286-7, nos. 57 & 58 (TB CCCXLIV 394 & 404)

6. Fort Bard sketchbook, Tate Britain D29336, D29338; TB CCXCIV 66, 67