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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Passage of the Simplon Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Views from the North of Arona and Angera, Lake Maggiore 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Views from the North of Arona and Angera, Lake Maggiore’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Recto:
Two Views from the North of Arona and Angera, Lake Maggiore 1819
D16940
Turner Bequest CXCIV 27
Pencil and grey watercolour wash on white wove paper, 121 x 195 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘27’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CXCIV 27’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Federico Crimi has identified the sketches on this page as two views looking south from the Simplon road which skirts the western shores of Lake Maggiore.1 The upper vista includes two medieval castles built by the Borromean family on this part of the lake: on the left is the Rocca di Angera; whilst on the right is the ruined Rocca di Arona. The lower scene meanwhile depicts a distant view of Arona. Visible on the far right-hand side is the ‘San Carlone’, a vast bronze statue of San Carlos Borromeo which is situated on the heights above Arona where it overlooks and blesses the town.
A study of the old port in Arona appears on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 26 verso (D16939), whilst another distant view of the Rocca di Angera from the north can be seen on folio 32 verso (D16950). A more detailed view of Arona seen from the south can be found in the Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore sketchbook (Tate D14323–D14324; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 91a–92).

Nicola Moorby
May 2011

1
Crimi 2007, p.36.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Views from the North of Arona and Angera, Lake Maggiore 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 2011, 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-two-views-from-the-north-of-arona-and-angera-lake-maggiore-r1132815, accessed 20 April 2024.