Joseph Mallord William Turner

This sketch represents part of a view of Naples from Mergellina, a small fishing village and port about a mile west of the main city towards Posillipo. The vista looks east along the Chiaia waterfront with the hill surmounted by Castel Sant’Elmo and the Certosa di San Martino on the right-hand side above. The building visible on the heights of the Vomero Hill to the left meanwhile is the seventeenth-century Villa Belvedere. The slope towards the left-hand side of the scene is a road known as the Salita di Sant’Antonio which led from Piedgrotta to the church of Sant’Antonio. In the early nineteenth century the seafront was further back than it is today (present-day Via Caracciolo was built after land was reclaimed from the sea in 1845).1 The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread with Castel dell’Ovo and Vesuvius, see folio 66 verso (D16036; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 64a). Related sketches can be found on folios 64 verso–65 (D16032–D16033; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 62a–63).