Joseph Mallord William Turner

The South Transept of Milan Cathedral

1819

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Not on display

Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Milan to Venice Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 185 × 112 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D14332
Turner Bequest CLXXV 4

Catalogue entry

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Part of the Cathedral, Milan’): ‘East end from rear of the episcopal Palace’.1 However, as Ian Warrell tentatively suggested, the view is of the south side of the cathedral,2 looking east to the elaborate south transept with its projecting apse rising to about two-thirds of the overall height. The pinnacles seen today are not in evidence here.
The surroundings are much altered, but the building in the right foreground is the Palazzo Reale (the Palazzo Arcivescovie being a little way beyond on that side). See under folio 2 recto (D14328) for other Milan views.
1
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.512.
2
Undated note by Ian Warrell in Tate catalogue files.
Verso:
Blank

Matthew Imms
March 2017

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