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 > Ancona to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?The Castle Walls and Bastion at Loreto 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Castle Walls and Bastion at Loreto’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Verso:
?The Castle Walls and Bastion at Loreto 1819
D14664
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 6 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
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 not conclusively identified but may depict the Renaissance walls and circular bastion near the Porta Romana in Loreto. Similar views seen from the north of the city can be seen on folios 9 verso (D14670) and 10 verso (D14672). The wobbly, uncertain lines indicate that it was almost certainly drawn from a moving carriage.

Nicola Moorby
November 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘?The Castle Walls and Bastion at Loreto 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 2008, 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-the-castle-walls-and-bastion-at-loreto-r1138826, accessed 24 April 2024.