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 Sketches of Torregaveta and the Cumae Coast; and Part of a View of the Bay of Baiae with the So-Called Temple of Venus 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Torregaveta and the Cumae Coast; and Part of a View of the Bay of Baiae with the So-Called Temple of Venus’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 85 Verso:
Sketches of Torregaveta and the Cumae Coast; and Part of a View of the Bay of Baiae with the So-Called Temple of Venus 1819
D15724
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 83 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Ischia’ above centre sketch on right and ‘[?Orange]’ within hill, top right of left-hand sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The main sketch on the left-hand side of the page represents part of a view of the Bay of Baiae looking south-east from the shore. The octagonal ruin in the foreground is the so-called Temple of Venus, one of a number of Roman thermal bath-houses found within the bay. The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 86 (D15725; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 84). An early study of the ‘temple’ after another artist can be found in Dr Monro’s Album of Italian Views (Tate D36422; Turner Bequest CCCLXXIII 9). There is also a later oil study which probably also features the ruin, see Seacoast with Ruin, probably the Bay of Baiae circa 1828 (Tate, N00530).1
The four sketches on the right-hand side of the page all appear to depict vistas of the coastline to the west of Baiae towards Cumae. These include a study of the watch-tower at Torregaveta, and above that, a view of the islands of Procida and Ischia with the islet of San Martino in front. For related, alternative drawings see folios 82 verso and 84 (D15718 and D15721; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 80a and 84).

Nicola Moorby
June 2010

1
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, no.319.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Sketches of Torregaveta and the Cumae Coast; and Part of a View of the Bay of Baiae with the So-Called Temple of Venus 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-sketches-of-torregaveta-and-the-cumae-coast-and-part-of-a-r1138185, accessed 25 April 2024.