Joseph Mallord William Turner

An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, Buildings and a Bridge

c.1828–9

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Colour Studies of Idealised Italianate Landscapes
Medium
Watercolour on paper
Dimensions
Support: 356 × 508 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D25167
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 45

Catalogue entry

There seems to be a substantial building on the left, with a smaller one by what appears to be the arch of a low bridge at the centre. Compare several other rapidly executed, muted ‘colour beginnings’ with dark, isolated trees (Tate D25168, D25175, D25208, D25275; Turner Bequest CCLXIII, 46, 53, 86, 153).
D25168 and D25208 are also on 1828 paper,1 while the composition of the former has been linked to the oil painting The Loretto Necklace, painted soon after Turner’s return from his second Italian tour of 1828–9 (Tate N00509).2 He had also been working on watercolours of Italian subjects shortly before the trip.3
1
See Shanes 1997, pp.95, 98.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.185 no.331, pl.334.
3
See Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.384 nos.726, 730, 731; also Shanes 1997, p.29
Verso:
Blank; laid down.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

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