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 Two Views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius from the West 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius from the West’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Recto:
Two Views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius from the West 1819
D15666
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 55
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Naples’ top right and ‘[?orange]’ bottom right of upper sketch. Also ‘walls’ bottom centre of lower, inverted sketch
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘281’ bottom right and ‘55’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIV 55’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two distinct landscape sketches associated with Turner’s exploration of Naples. Both depict the city from the west but from different locations. The study in the top left-hand corner represents the view of the bay with Castel dell’Ovo and Vesuvius as seen from the Posillipo Hill above Virgil’s tomb (present-day Parco Vergiliano). This was one of the most famous viewpoints in Naples and had become an established vista for artists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Turner would almost certainly have been familiar with the drawing by James Hakewill (1778–1843) engraved for the publication Picturesque Tour of Italy (1820), Naples and Mount Vesuvius from above Virgil’s Tomb 1816 (British School at Rome Library).1 A more detailed study of the prospect can be found within the Naples: Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16143; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 55).

The inverted sketch in the bottom right-hand corner also represents a similar view with Vesuvius and the headland of Castel dell’Ovo but from a more inland, northerly position, possibly from somewhere on the Vomero hill.

Nicola Moorby
May 2010

1
See 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.5.43, p.271, reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Views of the Bay of Naples and Vesuvius from the West 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-two-views-of-the-bay-of-naples-and-vesuvius-from-the-west-r1138128, accessed 24 April 2024.