Joseph Mallord William Turner

This page contains two on-the-spot sketches relating to Turner’s travels in Italy in 1819. Turner’s inscription suggests that the location of the upper drawing of clouds is Poggio, a small village on the road between Bologna and Imola. The lower vista depicts a view of Spoleto, a picturesque Umbrian town which lies approximately half-way on the nineteenth-century route between Ancona and Rome. The study represents the approach from the north looking towards the fourteenth-century castle, the Rocca Albornoziana. A related view can be found in the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (see Tate D14727; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 38a).