J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Naples: Looking across the Bay towards Vesuvius from Mergellina c.1796-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin, ‘Naples: Looking across the Bay towards Vesuvius from Mergellina’ c.1796-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
Naples: Looking across the Bay towards Vesuvius from Mergellina c.1796–7
D36542
Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 21
Pencil and grey and blue washes, 270 x 420 mm
Watermark ‘J WHATMAN’
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXV – 21’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Provenance:
Probably commissioned by Dr Thomas Monro
Monro’s posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 26–28 June and 1–2 July 1833 (day and lot number not known)
Bought by or on behalf of Turner
This was presumably copied from a sketch or watercolour by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797). The washes here are exceptionally perfunctory, and it is tempting to suppose they were applied by a hand other than Turner’s. However the pencil underdrawing seems to be Girtin’s, and the format of the sheet corresponds roughly to several which can fairly safely be ascribed to the Girtin-Turner collaboration, so it seems reasonable to include the sheet in this group under the joint ascription.
The present subject is apparently the work listed in the 1906 Manchester and 1912 Newcastle catalogues of the Fourth Loan Collection, but not in William White’s 1896 catalogue of the initial 1891–5 showing at the Ruskin Art Museum in Sheffield.1 It was presumably introduced as an extra or replacement work at an unknown date after 1895, hence the other venues prior to 1906 are listed here only tentatively.
1
William White, Notes on a Biographical Series of Fifty Drawings and Sketches by J.M.W. Turner, R.A., Belonging to the National Gallery Collection, London 1896.
Verso:
Blank; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Naples: Looking across the Bay towards Vesuvius from Mergellina c.1796–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin’, catalogue entry, April 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-thomas-girtin-naples-looking-across-the-bay-towards-vesuvius-r1141281, accessed 25 April 2024.