Ashmolean The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s teaching collection at Oxford

The print shows a rocky road running into a tunnel, with a precipitous drop to the right, a glimpse of river far below, and mountains and steep, jagged peaks behind, the highest topped with snow. It depicts a scene on the Saint Gotthard Pass.

In his entry for no. 304 in the Standard Series in the "Catalogue of Examples", Ruskin called the print "Scene on the St. Gothard". Cook & Wedderburn ( XXI.6) identified this with 'the published plate "Mount St. Gothard"' from Turner's "Liber Studiorum", where it was published in Part II on 20 February 1808.

The print seems to have been included in the Catalogue of Examples (1870) under two numbers: in its entry for Educational Series no. 35 F, Ruskin also listed it as no. 304 in the Standard Series. However, the print does not appear in subsequent catalogues of the collection, and Cook and Wedderburn noted that, by the time they compiled their edition of Ruskin's catalogues in 1906, the print was no longer in the Teaching Collection. The example reproduced here is a surrogate, taken from the Ashmolean's collection. The presence of highlights on the rocks on the left, and the lack of a full stop after 'C. Turner' in the publication line, identify this particular impression as the first state to be listed by Finberg. It is in fair condition, with some foxing and staining of the paper.

According to Ruskin, Standard Series nos 301-400 (of which only 301-304 were ever recorded) represented 'the special skill of modern time' (Catalogue of Examples, p. 3).