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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Italy c.1828-43 > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner ?Italian Buildings on a Hill c.1828-43

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?Italian Buildings on a Hill’ c.1828-43
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
?Italian Buildings on a Hill c.1828–43
D33964
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 249
Pencil on off-white wove paper, 150 x 228 mm
Partial watermark ‘S’ with laurel leaves
Inscribed in red ink ‘249’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 249’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject, buildings clustered on a steep hill, is unidentified, but may be Italian; see the Introduction to this section for further brief discussion and dating. Like Tate D33963 and D33965 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 248, 250) it may show a more detailed aspect of the hill overlooking the town in Tate D33962 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 247).
Technical notes:
Paper conservator Peter Bower has noted numerous examples from Turner Bequest section CCCXLI of quarter sheets of paper with a watermark of letters ‘CS and laurel leaves’, paired with a separate mark of three numbers; they may come from one of the Brescia paper mill in Lombardy, from which there are comparable datable sheets from the 1830s and early 1840s.1
1
See Peter Bower, Turner’s Later Papers: A Study of the Manufacture, Selection and Use of his Drawing Papers 1820–1851, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1999, p.113.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘480’ bottom left and in pencil ‘145 | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘[?218]’ bottom right.

Matthew Imms
February 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘?Italian Buildings on a Hill c.1828–43 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-italian-buildings-on-a-hill-r1183021, accessed 20 April 2024.