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 > Rome and Florence Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Interior of the Florence Cathedral, Showing the Crossing 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Interior of the Florence Cathedral, Showing the Crossing’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 46 Recto:
Interior of the Florence Cathedral, Showing the Crossing 1819
D16565
Turner Bequest CXCI 46
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘46’ bottom right [very faint]
Stamped in black ‘CXCI 46’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell first correctly identified, the subject of this sketch is the interior of the Duomo of Florence (also known as the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore). Turner’s view is taken from one of the side aisles of the nave, looking towards the polygonal chancel at the eastern end of the building and the crossing, a vast open space of 90 metres which lies beneath the famous dome built by Filippo Brunelleschi (1377–1446). Powell has described the drawing as a ‘perfunctory affair’, indicative of the contemporary English dislike of the austere interior.1 However, it is no more summarily drawn than similar studies by the artist such as those of St Peter’s in Rome, see St Peter’s sketchbook (Tate D16309, D16311–D16315; Turner Bequest 83, 84–86).
1
Powell 1987, p.91.
Verso:
Blank

Nicola Moorby
December 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Interior of the Florence Cathedral, Showing the Crossing 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 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-interior-of-the-florence-cathedral-showing-the-crossing-r1138458, accessed 20 April 2024.