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 > Naples, Paestum and Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Ships in the Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius; and Studies of Carts 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Ships in the Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius; and Studies of Carts’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 22 Recto:
Ships in the Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius; and Studies of Carts 1819
D15950
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 21
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Monte Circello Albano’ top left, and ‘R Cart’ top right. Also ‘APIA VIA | ALERIO C[?avs] | IMWIO | IO’ bottom centre, inverted
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘21’ top right and ‘245’ bottom left
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVI 21’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main sketch on this page depicts two ships seen within the Bay of Naples with Vesuvius beyond. For a similar view see folio 19 (D15944) and the Gandolfo to Naples sketchbook (Tate D15631; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 38a). The composition of the scene, with the larger three-masted vessel in the waters in front of the gently smoking volcano, is highly reminiscent of the right-hand side of Turner’s later watercolour illustration, Bay of Naples for Rogers’s Italy (see Tate D27660; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 143).
In the top right-hand corner of the sheet there are two thumbnail studies of different types of cart. Meanwhile, the source and meaning of the two handwritten inscriptions is not known, although they appear to refer to the return journey between Naples and Rome. ‘Monte Circello’, also known as Monte Circeo, is the mountain visible as a promontory all along the Tyrrenhian coastline from the Via Appia through the Pontine Marshes, see for example the Gandolfo to Naples sketchbook (Tate D15579; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 13).

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Ships in the Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius; and Studies of Carts 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2010, 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-ships-in-the-bay-of-naples-with-vesuvius-and-studies-of-r1137874, accessed 24 April 2024.