Joseph Mallord William Turner

With the page turned horizontally, there are at least two bands of landscape studies, showing hills along the coastline of the Gulf of Trieste as Turner travelled east by sea from Venice. The focus of the lower one appears to be the harbour at Trieste itself, seen to the north-east beyond scattered shipping, with the 1830s lighthouse which still stands at the southern end of the harbour, albeit superseded in the 1920s by the monumental Faro della Vittoria, north of the port.1 This is one of a sequence of views in and around the Adriatic city, made working inwards from the back of this sketchbook; see under folio 57 recto (D30109).2

The other way up, at the outer edge, is a rapid study of a wooded landscape with a bridge in the centre and what may be slight indications of a town or city in the distance towards the left. The subject was likely recorded later on Turner’s journey through present-day Slovenia and Austria (see the Introduction).

Technical notes:

There is staining at the top centre from the leather pencil loop secured under the rear paste-down (D30129; Turner Bequest CCXCIX 67).