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 > Remarks (Italy) Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Notes by the Artist on 'Landscape with the Port of Santa Marinella' by Claude Lorrain in the Sciarra Collection, Rome; and a Rough Sketch of Distant Buildings 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Notes by the Artist on 'Landscape with the Port of Santa Marinella' by Claude Lorrain in the Sciarra Collection, Rome; and a Rough Sketch of Distant Buildings’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 95 Recto:
Notes by the Artist on ‘Landscape with the Port of Santa Marinella’ by Claude Lorrain in the Sciarra Collection, Rome; and a Rough Sketch of Distant Buildings 1819
D16866
Turner Bequest CXCIII 94
Pencil on white wove paper, 115 x 94 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘94’ top left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CXCIII 94’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains handwritten notes by Turner concerning a painting by Claude Lorrain (circa 1604/5–1682), Landscape with the Port of Santa Marinella circa 1639–40 (Petit Palais, Paris), formerly in the collection of Prince Maffeo Barberini Colonna di Sciarra.1 He also made a rough pencil copy of the composition, see folio 81 (D16848; Turner Bequest CXCIII 80). The inscription, first transcribed by Finberg,2 reads as follows:
Chara Claude | the Sun in the Center and sky full | of clouds. rather spotted and too strong | for the whole. the upper part of the sky | Blue and the water too much so – | in parts – two buildings are well colord | one rather red. the other grey and brown | shadow
Turner’s identification of the painting as the ‘Chara Claude’ is probably a phonetic attempt to spell the Italian name, ‘Sciarra’. His comments about the picture’s colouring and composition are typical of his attitude towards the Old Masters, both admiring and critical. In this instance he approves of the treatment of the buildings in the middle distance but seems to feel that Claude’s depiction of nature’s effects lacks subtlety.3
Also on the page is a very rough inverted sketch which appears to depict a distant line of buildings.

Nicola Moorby
March 2011

1
Reproduced Powell 1987, p.68 and Ian Warrell, Blandine Chavanne and Michael Kitson, Turner et le Lorrain, exhibition catalogue, Musée des beaux-arts, Nancy 2002, p.109, ill.47.
2
Finberg 1909, p.575.
3
Powell 1987, pp.[67]–8.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Notes by the Artist on ‘Landscape with the Port of Santa Marinella’ by Claude Lorrain in the Sciarra Collection, Rome; and a Rough Sketch of Distant Buildings 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2011, 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-notes-by-the-artist-on-landscape-with-the-port-of-santa-r1138641, accessed 20 September 2024.