Joseph Mallord William Turner

Sketches by Turner of a Figure and a View of a Bay; and Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy

1819

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In Tate Britain

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Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Route to Rome Sketchbook
Medium
Pen and ink on paper
Dimensions
Support: 88 × 114 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D13886
Turner Bequest CLXXI 15 a

Catalogue entry

This page contains a message to Turner from James Hakewill (1778–1843), who filled this sketchbook with advice on travelling in Italy (see the introduction to the sketchbook). The text was first transcribed by Finberg,1 and is repeated here with minor variations:
Buy for me, a head of the pope in | imitation of a gem. and the | paste of it to take impressions from | probably 2/6 will purchase both.
The comments represent a request to buy a souvenir in Rome, see also folio 13 verso (D13882).
In addition to Hakewill’s inscription, Turner has also used this page for two on-the-spot pencil drawings. In the top right-hand corner is a study of the back of a seated woman. Turner’s annotated note suggests that it was drawn at Borghetto, a village on the Via Flaminia between Otricoli and Civita Castellana, see the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (Tate D14795; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 73). At the bottom of the sheet, meanwhile is a sketch of a landscape. The view is currently unidentified, but it appears to depict a tower within a bay, with hills in the background.

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.497.

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