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 of the Gulf of Naples, Seen from Vesuvius 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Part of a View of the Gulf of Naples, Seen from Vesuvius’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Recto:
Part of a View of the Gulf of Naples, Seen from Vesuvius 1819
D15642
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 43
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘281’ bottom right and ‘43’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIV 43’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell first identified, Turner made a series of sketches of Naples and the surrounding landscape as seen from the ascent to the summit of Vesuvius, see folio 46 verso (D15645; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 44a).1 This rough pencil study is one of a number of similar on-the-spot views to depict the semi-circular sweep of the Bay and Gulf of Naples looking west/south-west from the slopes of the volcano.2 The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 44 verso (D15641; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 42a), but this part of the prospect includes the curving Posillipo coastline at Capo di Posillipo, and the great hill of Camaldoli which rises in the west above Naples.

Nicola Moorby
May 2010

1
Powell 1984, p.424.
2
For a similar view compare John ‘Warwick’ Smith (1749–1831), City of Naples from Vesuvius 1778–9 (Tate, T08509).

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Part of a View of the Gulf of Naples, Seen from Vesuvius 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-of-the-gulf-of-naples-seen-from-vesuvius-r1138104, accessed 20 April 2024.