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

After a sustained period of travel along the east coast from Rimini, Turner’s route towards Rome turned inland at Ancona and began to follow a south-westerly course towards the Apennine Mountains. Many of the urban settlements in this part of Italy were built upon high ground and Turner made a number of sketches of the hilltop towns and cities he glimpsed as he travelled through the landscape of the Marche region of Italy. The order of these drawings within the beginning of this sketchbook does not appear to follow a strict geographical sequence.

This sketch is identifiable only from the inscribed place name. Recanati is a small hill town approximately eleven miles south of Ancona, and three miles south-west from Loreto on the road to Macerata. The schematic and hasty nature of the pencil lines suggest that it is a distant view of the town, probably drawn on the road from a moving carriage.