'Vignette Study of Florence: Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia dei Lanzi; ?for Rogers's 'Italy'', Joseph Mallord William Turner

Artwork details

Artist

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775‑1851)

Title

Vignette Study of Florence: Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia dei Lanzi; ?for Rogers's 'Italy'

From Watercolours Related to Samuel Rogers's Italy

Date c.1826-36

MediumWatercolour on paper

Dimensionssupport: 392 x 293 mm

Collection

Tate

Acquisition Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

Reference

D27539

Turner Bequest CCLXXX 22

View this artwork by appointment, at Tate Britain's Prints and Drawings Rooms

Catalogue entry

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851

Vignette Study of Florence: Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia dei Lanzi; ?for Rogers’s ‘Italy’ circa 1826–36

D27539
Turner Bequest CCLXXX 22

Watercolour, approximately 175 x 190 mm on white wove paper, 392 x 292 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘(22’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXXX 22’ bottom right

Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856

References

The style and content of this unfinished vignette link it most directly to a preliminary study that Turner produced to illustrate Rogers’s chapter on Florence in Rogers’s Italy (see Tate D27612; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 95). Both studies are executed in a light wash and centre around a view of the Palazzo Vecchio. Turner here shows the Palazzo Vecchio and Loggia dei Lanzi, as well as the Fountain of Neptune in the foreground. Piggott has suggested that the composition may be based on a sketch from the Rome and Florence sketchbook, 1819 (see Tate D16554; Turner Bequest CXCI 37).1

The final composition chosen to illustrate Florence in the publication shows a traditional view of the city from Fiesole (see Tate D27673; Turner Bequest CCLXXX).

Piggott 1993, p.95, erroneously as connected to Rogers’s Poems.

Technical notes:
Watermark ‘J. Whatman / Turkey Mill’

Verso:

Inscribed by unknown hands in pencil ‘CCLXXX 22’ lower right and ‘AB 117 P | M’ bottom right

Meredith Gamer
August 2006

Read this catalogue entry in full

This catalogue entry is part of: David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, December 2012.