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 Distant View of Capri from the Posillipo Coastline, with the Villa Martinelli 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of Capri from the Posillipo Coastline, with the Villa Martinelli’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 87 Recto:
Distant View of Capri from the Posillipo Coastline, with the Villa Martinelli 1819
D16077
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 85
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Vines’ within sketch of cliff, top centre
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘85’ bottom left, inverted, and ‘245’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVI 85’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner made a thorough exploration of the picturesque landscape of Posillipo to the west of Naples and his viewpoint for this sketch is the new coastal road, the Via Posillipo, built during the early nineteenth century on the orders of Joachim Murat, the King of Naples. The road stands directly above a small inlet cove and there is cave in the rock by the water’s edge. The building in the bottom left-hand corner is the Villa Martinelli (formerly also known as the Villa Cappella), one of a number of seventeenth and eighteenth-century villas which were built along Posillipo coastline.1 The prospect looks south from the cliff side towards the distant island of Capri, silhouetted against the horizon.
For further views from the Via Posillipo see folios 83 verso–86 verso (D16070–D16076; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 81a–84a), as well as the Gandolfo to Naples sketchbook (Tate D15669; Turner Bequest 56a) and the Naples: Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16094–6, D16106; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 7–9, 18).

Nicola Moorby
August 2010

1
The same villa appears in a drawing by Achille Vianelli (1803–1894) dated circa 1820 (Museo di Capodimonte, Naples), reproduced on-line at http://museodicapodimonte.campaniabeniculturali.it/itinerari-tematici/galleria-di-immagini/OA100016 ; and in an oil painting by Ercole Gigante (1815–1860), Villa Martinelli (Collezione Autiello, Naples). Today the villa has been converted into holiday accommodation.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Distant View of Capri from the Posillipo Coastline, with the Villa Martinelli 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 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-distant-view-of-capri-from-the-posillipo-coastline-with-the-r1138001, accessed 27 April 2024.