By Kind Permission of Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
By Kind Permission of Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
Turner 's Arona, Lago Maggiore, watercolour, c.1828, Private Collection ( Wilton 730); engraved by W.R. Smith for The Keepsake, 1829 ( Rawlinson 321). The watercolour was in the Ruskin collection by 1861-1862, and from the following detailed description, may well have been acquired before 1843.
While in Italy in the summer of 1858, Ruskin visited Arona to check the site of the image, and in a letter of 14 July to his father expressed his disappointment in finding evidence of Turner 's 'terrible roguery in the hills. No such hills are, or ever were, in sight from Arona. They are gathered together, hill by hill... and then thrown all together in one grand imaginary chain... I cannot quite apologise for Mr. Turner this time' ( Works, 13.457).
J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851
Arona on Lake Maggiore c.1828
Watercolour, 29.2x42.2cm
Exhibitions: RA 1974 (466)
Engraving:
Engraved by W.R. Smith, 1829
Steel engraving, 13x8.7cm
Engraved for the Keepsake for 1829
Provenance: John Ruskin; T.S. Kennedy, sale Christie 18/5/1895 (96), bt. Agnew
Collection: Brian Pilkington, London