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 > Return from Italy Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Views of the Sacra di San Michele and One of Sant'Ambrogio di Torino 1820

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Views of the Sacra di San Michele and One of Sant'Ambrogio di Torino’ 1820
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
Two Views of the Sacra di San Michele and One of Sant’Ambrogio di Torino 1820
D16648
Turner Bequest CXCII 4 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 128 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘S Michel’ bottom of top left sketch, and ‘S Ambrogi’ bottom of top right sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
On his return journey through Italy Turner retraced his steps from Turin through the Val di Susa (Susa Valley) towards the Mont Cenis pass. This page contains three sketches of views seen from the road travelling west, approximately eleven miles outside Turin. On the left-hand side of the sheet are two studies of the Sacra di San Michele, a tenth-century abbey which stands on Mount Pirchiriano, near the towns of Sant’Ambrogio di Torino and Avigliana. The abbey is a distinctive landmark in this part of the valley and the artist had already made a number of related drawings dating from the outward leg of his tour in the Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore sketchbook (see for example Tate, D14160; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 8). Meanwhile, as Turner’s inscription indicates, the sketch in the top right-hand corner depicts the nearby town of Sant’Ambrogio di Torino.

Nicola Moorby
April 2013

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Views of the Sacra di San Michele and One of Sant’Ambrogio di Torino 1820 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-two-views-of-the-sacra-di-san-michele-and-one-of-r1142547, accessed 24 April 2024.