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 > Route to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 8 Recto:
Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819
D13873
Turner Bequest CLXXI 8
Black ink on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by James Hakewill (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘8’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXI 8’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This inscription represents advice to Turner on travelling in Italy in preparation for the artist’s first tour of the country in 1819. The author is James Hakewill (1778–1843), with whom Turner collaborated on the engraved print project, Picturesque Tour of Italy, published 1820 (see the introduction to the sketchbook). The text was first transcribed by Finberg,1 and is repeated here with minor variations:
Genoa – | Go to the Durazzo Palace, without | the Walls for a good view of the City. | Go to the Marq. de Negre’s botanic | gardens – | In the church of St. Etienne, a famous | picture of the Stoning the Saint | See the Bridge of Carignano & Church. | Yr attendant will take you | to the principal palaces. –
Hakewill had himself visited the city in 1816–17, and several views can be found amidst his drawings from this time (British School at Rome Library), including depictions of the port from the Durazzo Villa and the Di Negro gardens.2 He naturally recommended that Turner follow the same itinerary, travelling to Rome via the west coast. However, Turner ultimately opted for a different route, entering Italy via the Pass of Mont Cenis and proceeded first to Venice via Milan and the Italian Lakes, before continuing onto Rome via Ancona. He did not visit Genoa until his second tour of Italy in 1828, see the Coast of Genoa sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXXXII) and the Genoa and Florence sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CCXXXIII). Hakewill’s notes continue on folio 9 (D13875).

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.496.
2
See Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A Catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, nos.2.21–2.27, pp.137–43, reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-notes-by-james-hakewill-on-travelling-in-italy-r1138691, accessed 19 April 2024.