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 Three Sketches of Campo and the Balbianello Peninsula, Lake Como; and Part of a View of Como 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Three Sketches of Campo and the Balbianello Peninsula, Lake Como; and Part of a View of Como’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 61 Verso:
Three Sketches of Campo and the Balbianello Peninsula, Lake Como; and Part of a View of Como 1819
D14261
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 60 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 111 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘campo’ bottom centre of second sketch from top
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains four distinct sketches; three small studies parallel with the right-hand edge of the sketchbook, and one larger but rougher drawing which is a continuation of the landscape composition on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 62 (D14262; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 61).
The top three sketches all appear to be variant views of the same subject, inscribed by the artist as ‘Campo’. Federico Crimi has identified this location as the small village or frazione of Campo between Lenno and Sala Comacina on the western shore of Lake Como.1 Turner’s viewpoint is from the waters of the lake to the east, looking towards a headland upon which is built the Villa del Balbianello. Visible in the central vista are the twin campanili of the convent church from which the villa was developed during the late eighteenth century. A related study can be seen on folio 67 verso (D14273; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 66a), and there is also a later drawing dating from a trip to Como in 1842 or 1843 (Tate D34543; Turner Bequest CCCXLIV d 166v).
For a discussion of Turner’s sketches of Lake Como see folio 48 (D14234; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 47).

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

1
Crimi 2007, p.28 note 31.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Three Sketches of Campo and the Balbianello Peninsula, Lake Como; and Part of a View of Como 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 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-three-sketches-of-campo-and-the-balbianello-peninsula-lake-r1142782, accessed 25 April 2024.