Joseph Mallord William TurnerThe Vision of St Bruno, after Pier Francesco Mola 1802

Turner turned the sketchbook upright to make this drawing. Finberg’s putative title for it survived until the artist and picture in the Louvre were identified in the 1993 Paris exhibition catalogue.1 On his return from the Alps in 1802, Turner stayed in Paris in the first weeks of October and visited the Louvre, where the collections were greatly increased in number by Napoleon’s trophies of conquest. He made many drawings after the Old Masters and recorded notes and opinions in his Studies in the Louvre sketchbook (Tate D04275–D04390; Turner Bequest LXXII); see Introduction to that sketchbook for a full account. This, the only such drawing in the present sketchbook, was made after Mola’s picture, a reduced version of a work painted 1663–6 for Prince Agostino Chigi.

Recently exhibited at Tate Britain,2 the colouristic, compositional and emotional attractions of The Vision of St Bruno for Turner became evident again. In later lecture notes, he praised its ‘beautiful conceptions of pastoral quietude’3 but must also have admired its rich and warm tones. As has been observed, his drawing shows him to have been particularly struck by the roles Mola assigned to the two trees on the left, which form a cross and bridge earth and heaven.4

As Turner bought the sketchbook in Paris during his first visit to the city at the end of July, the drawing was most probably made then, and represents his first use of the book. Notes on pictures by Titian and Correggio in the Small Calais Pier sketchbook (Tate D04262, D04264; Turner Bequest LXXI 62a, 63a), otherwise used only around Calais on his arrival in France and on his way to Paris, support an early visit to the Louvre. Then or during his longer stay in the city on the way back Turner made three drawings after other works by Mola in the Studies in the Louvre sketchbook; St John the Baptist Preaching (D04293; folio 18), Erminia and Valfrino Tending the Wounded Tancred (D04387; folio 79) and Erminia Watching her Flock, Carving Tancred’s Name on a Tree (D04379; folio 80).

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