Joseph Mallord William Turner

Trieste Harbour and the Lighthouse from the Gulf

1840

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In Tate Britain

Prints and Drawings Room

View by appointment
Artist
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Part of
Trieste, Graz and Danube Sketchbook
Medium
Graphite on paper
Dimensions
Support: 127 × 198 mm
Collection
Tate
Acquisition
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Reference
D30125
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 65

Catalogue entry

Turner used this page horizontally, turned both ways, for two main views of Trieste looking north-east from the sea. Both feature its lighthouse, with a detail complementing the lower, inverted study towards the gutter showing the stone gallery set on prominent corbels below the lantern. The structure still stands, set on a castellated base at the southern end of the harbour, but was superseded in the 1920s by the monumental Faro della Vittoria, north of the city.1
These are among a sequence of views in and around the Adriatic port city, made working inwards from the back of this sketchbook; see under folio 57 recto (D30109).2
1
See ‘Fanale – Lanterna’, Istria on the Internet, accessed 23 April 2018, http://www.istrianet.org/istria//architecture/lighthouses/trieste-lanterna.htm.
2
See also Powell 1995, pp.66, 81 note 18.
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).

Matthew Imms
September 2018

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