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 > Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Two Sketches of Avigliana; including One with the Sacra di San Michele in the Distance 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches of Avigliana; including One with the Sacra di San Michele in the Distance’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 10 Verso:
Two Sketches of Avigliana; including One with the Sacra di San Michele in the Distance 1819
D14163
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 9 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two sketches. The smaller study situated on the left-hand side of the page, parallel with the left-hand edge, depicts a view of the town and castle of Avigliana.1 The town lies on the main road through the Val di Susa, between Susa and Turin, approximately twenty-two miles east of the French-Italian border. Turner has drawn the view from the historic old town with the ruined castle visible on the heights above to the right. The Romanesque church visible to the left is Santa Maria Maggiore. A similar view can be found on folio 10 (D14162; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 9).
The second sketch also depicts Avigliana but is part of a larger landscape composition which continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 11 (D14164; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 10). Turner’s view looks west from the town, with the castle and Church of Santa Maria Maggiore on the far left and visible in the distance the distinctive silhouette of the Sacra di San Michele, a large ancient religious complex built on a high peak.

Nicola Moorby
December 2012

1
First identified by Federico Crimi. Crimi 2007, p.22 note 15.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Sketches of Avigliana; including One with the Sacra di San Michele in the Distance 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2012, 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-sketches-of-avigliana-including-one-with-the-sacra-di-r1142686, accessed 27 April 2024.