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 > Pompeii, Amalfi, &c., Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Part of a View of Castel dell'Ovo and Vesuvius from Villa Reale, Naples 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Part of a View of Castel dell'Ovo and Vesuvius from Villa Reale, Naples’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 68 Recto:
Part of a View of Castel dell’Ovo and Vesuvius from Villa Reale, Naples 1819
D15863
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 67
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘278’ bottom right and ‘67’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXV 67’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This view of Naples looking east towards Castel dell’Ovo and the Pizzofalcone hill is taken from Villa Reale, a royal promenade (present-day Villa Comunale park) which runs along the length of the Chiaia waterfront between Piazza Vittoria and Piazza della Repubblica. During the early nineteenth-century the gardens stretched directly to the edge of the sea, although they are now bordered to the south by the Via Caracciolo. Visible in the distance is the vast silhouette of Vesuvius with its smoking crater Monte Somma. The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 67 verso (D15862; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 66a). A sketch of the view looking in the opposite direction towards Posillipo can be seen on folio 68 verso (D15864; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 67a).
Further studies of the Villa Reale can be seen in the Gandolfo to Naples sketchbook (Tate D15656–D15657; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 50–50a) and the Naples, Paestum, Rome sketchbook (Tate D16015; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 52a).

Nicola Moorby
October 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Part of a View of Castel dell’Ovo and Vesuvius from Villa Reale, Naples 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 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-castel-dellovo-and-vesuvius-from-villa-r1138332, accessed 19 April 2024.