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 View of the Church of San Franceso, Cava de' Tirreni; Also a View near Albano, and Hills with a Distant View of the Sea 1819

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of the Church of San Franceso, Cava de' Tirreni; Also a View near Albano, and Hills with a Distant View of the Sea’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 29 Recto:
View of the Church of San Franceso, Cava de’ Tirreni; Also a View near Albano, and Hills with a Distant View of the Sea 1819
D15964
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 27
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Sea’ and ‘near Albano’ within sketch, bottom centre. Also ‘Sea’ and ‘Wilson’ within right-hand sketch, parallel with right-hand edge
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘27’ top right and ‘245’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVI 27’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main sketch on this page depicts Cava de’ Tirreni (formerly known as La Cava), which lies amidst the Lattari mountains on the road to Salerno between Nocera and Vietri sul Mare. Turner made a number of drawings of the town, see folio 24 verso (D15955; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 23a), but this study represents the view from the south-east looking across a viaduct (present-day Via Enrico de Marinis) towards the Church of San Francesco and Sant’Antonio. The church was almost completely destroyed by an earthquake in 1980 although a new building was reconstructed on the same site. A similar view can be seen in a drawing by James Hakewill (1778–1843), La Cava, on the Road to Salerno 1816 (Library of the British School at Rome).1
Also on this page are two small unidentified views. Turner has annotated one of these landscapes ‘Near Albano’, suggesting that they may relate to his return journey between Naples and Rome (see the sketchbook introduction). The other scene, which represents hills with a distant view of the sea, appears to have recalled the works of the Welsh landscape painter Richard Wilson (1713–1782) whose name he has inscribed beneath.

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

1
Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A Catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, no.5.53, p.284 reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of the Church of San Franceso, Cava de’ Tirreni; Also a View near Albano, and Hills with a Distant View of the Sea 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-view-of-the-church-of-san-franceso-cava-de-tirreni-also-a-r1137888, accessed 26 April 2024.