J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

This page contains inscriptions by Turner on places in Italy, possibly notes derived from a travel guide, or memoranda jotted down in conversation with James Hakewill (see the introduction to the sketchbook). Venice and Tivoli were amongst the many locations included on his 1819 tour of the country. As Cecilia Powell and James Hamilton have both noted, the artist’s mention here of Palestrina may represent his intention to visit this ancient city, approximately twenty miles east of Rome.1 Yet despite it forming the subject of a later finished oil painting, Palestrina – Composition, 1828 (Tate N06283),2 there are no identifiable sketches within either the 1819 or 1828 sketchbooks, suggesting that he may never have gone there. For a further discussion see folio 28 (D13911).