Joseph Mallord William Turner

Trieste Harbour, with Moored Boats; the Lighthouse

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
D30120
Turner Bequest CCXCIX 62 a

Catalogue entry

With the page turned horizontally and used both ways up, there are two similar views here from within Trieste’s busy harbour, looking north. There is a separate, more detailed study of the lighthouse above the outer view, where it also appears in rough outline on the left. Operational from 1833, it still stands on its castellated base at the southern end of the harbour, but was superseded in the 1920s by the monumental Faro della Vittoria, north of the city.1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 part of 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 bottom 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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