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 10 Recto:
Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819
D13877
Turner Bequest CLXXI 10
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 ‘10’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXI 10’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This author of the inscription on this page is James Hakewill (1778–1843), with whom Turner collaborated on the engraved print project, Picturesque Tour of Italy, published 1820. It represents advice to Turner on travelling in Italy in preparation for the artist’s first tour of the country in 1819 (see the introduction to the sketchbook). The text was first transcribed by Finberg,1 and is repeated here with minor variations:
Lucca –. Make an excursion for | the day to the Baths – | Inn at Lucca – Croca di Malta | good – | See a picture called a Vandyke, in the | Church
Hakewill had himself visited Italy in 1816–17, and views of the countryside near the Baths of Lucca can be found amidst his drawings from this time (British School at Rome Library).2 He naturally recommended that Turner follow the same itinerary, travelling to Rome via Genoa and Florence. 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. Hakewill’s notes to Turner continue on folio 10 verso (D40675).

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.2.30–2.31, pp.146–7, 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-r1138695, accessed 24 April 2024.