The Lake of Zug

Joseph Mallord William Turner

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Returning from an extended sojourn in the Swiss Alps, Turner solicited patrons for large watercolors to be based on sketches from the trip. This view was commissioned by Hugh Andrew Johnstone Munro of Novar in 1843, and was later owned by John Ruskin. Its accomplished rendering of light and atmospheric effects is characteristic of Turner's finest work. The drawing exhibits the technical prowess that made Turner both controversial and celebrated. The lake and mountains display successive applications of color—in dilute washes, drier watercolors, and semi-opaque mixtures—while the mist and reflections reveal the smooth white surface of the paper scraped out of an already painted area. The sun rises between the mountains Rossberg and Mythen behind the town of Arth while, in the foreground, nude girls play in the lake as villagers approach the shore and set out in boats.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art