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 > Gandolfo to Naples Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Part of a View from the Quayside, Naples, with the Immacolatella and the Mole Lighthouse 1819

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Part of a View from the Quayside, Naples, with the Immacolatella and the Mole Lighthouse’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 40 Recto:
Part of a View from the Quayside, Naples, with the Immacolatella and the Mole Lighthouse 1819
D15632
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 39
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Vegetable’ bottom right
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘281’ bottom right and ‘39’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIV 39’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject of this sketch is part of a view from the quayside of the old port of Naples near Castel Nuovo. Turner’s viewpoint is standing just in front of the Church of Santa Maria di Porto Salvo looking south-east towards the Immacolatella, the eighteenth-century quarantine station which still stands on the waterfront near present-day Molo Immacolatella Vecchia.1 Built during the 1740s by Neapolitan architect Domenico Antonio Vaccaro (1678–1745), the building is so called because of the statue of the Virgin which surmounts the façade. Turner transcribed the inscription beneath the statue on another page of this sketchbook, see folio 40 verso (D15633; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 39a). To the right of the composition is the former Mole (pier) with the lighthouse.2 As Turner’s study shows the port was a busy, lively area of the city, crowded with shipping and people. In the bottom right-hand corner, he has noted some figures selling vegetables. The drawing continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread with the unmistakeable silhouette of Vesuvius and Monte Somma, see folio 39 verso (D15631; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 38a). For a view of the Immacolatella from the sea, see the Naples, Paestum, Rome sketchbook (Tate D15915; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 4a).

Nicola Moorby
May 2010

1
In certain eighteenth-century topographical engravings the building is known as the Palazzo della Deputazio.
2
The port of Naples has undergone extensive redevelopment since the early nineteenth century but the approximate position of the lighthouse was near the present-day ferry terminal of Molo Angioino (Stazione Marittima).

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Part of a View from the Quayside, Naples, with the Immacolatella and the Mole Lighthouse 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-part-of-a-view-from-the-quayside-naples-with-the-r1138094, accessed 26 April 2024.