Joseph Mallord William Turner
A Distant View of Chambery from the North, with Storm Clouds

CultureBritish
Titles
  • A Distant View of Chambery from the North, with Storm Clouds
Date1836
MediumWatercolor on wove paper, squared
DimensionsImage/sheet: 9 3/4 × 10 3/4 in. (24.8 × 27.3 cm)
Credit LineThe Stuart Collection, museum purchase funded by Francita Stuart Koelsch Ulmer in memory of her great aunt Ella Stuart Heyer, President of the Houston Art League 1905–1910, the Museum’s founding organization
Object number2020.404
Non exposé

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Special Collections
ProvenanceThe artist, 1836; probably art market, Europe, later 1850s; John Edward Taylor (1830–1905); [his sale, Christie’s, London, Catalogue of the highly important collection of drawings by J.M.W. Turner, works by old masters and modern pictures & drawings, formed by the late John Edward Taylor July 8, 1912, lot 107 (as A Mountainous Landscape: A town seen in a valley, in the middle distance. 9 ¾ by 10 ¾ in.)];
purchased by Horace Gibbs, 1912 (for £1155 / 1100 guineas); purchased by or through Horace Gibbs for Mrs. Willard Straight (née Dorothy Payne Whitney, later Mrs Leonard K. Elmhirst), 1912–42; possibly transferred to the Westbury Holding Company for sale, 1942; [Kende Galleries at Gimbel Bros., New York, Valuable Paintings-Important Silver-Rugs-Furniture-Chinese Art-Property of The Westbury Holding Corporation collected by Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst (Mrs. Willard D. Straight)-The Former Miss Dorothy Payne Whitney, May 28, 1942, lot 190]; [Vose Galleries, Boston, MA]; Mrs. Robert Choate, Danvers, MA (1900-1987), by 1946-1983; [Leger Galleries, London, 983-1984]; [London, Christie’s, London, Important English Drawings and Watercolours, July 10, 1984, lot 238 (under “The Property of a Lady,” as View over an Alpine Valley, probably Val d’Aosta, c. 1836)]; private collection, acquired from the above, 1984; by descent, 2018; [London, Libson Yarker Ltd, 2019-2020]; purchased by the MFAH, 2020.



Exhibition HistoryMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1912-42 (on loan from Mrs. Dorothy Whitney Straight).

Valuable Paintings-Important Silver-Rugs-Furniture-Chinese Art-Property of the Westbury Holding Corporation collected by Mrs. Leonard K. Elmhirst (Mrs. Willard D. Straight)-The Former Miss Dorothy Payne Whitney, Kende Galleries at Gimball Bros., New York, May 1942, cat. 190.

An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, and Prints by J.M.W. Turner, John Constable and R.P. Bonington, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 1946, cat. 41 (exh. cat., lent by Mrs. Robert B. Choate).

English Watercolours, Leger Galleries, London, 1984, cat. 2 (as An Alpine Valley, probably the Val d'Aosta) (exh. cat.).

Turner and the Romantic Landscape, Toronto Art Gallery, Toronto, 1995 (exh. cat.).

Joseph Mallord William Turner: Le Mont-Blanc et la Vallee d'Aoste, Museo Archeologico Regionale, Aosta, 2000, 123, 271-72, cat. 14 (as Sallanches, 1836) (exh. cat. by David Hill).
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
None noted.
No watermark visible. Other watercolors from this 1836 trip have the watermark: B,E / 182
Catalogue raisonnésee above
View this object in The Stuart Collection

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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