J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

Having departed from Rome, Turner journeyed north-east during the first week of January 1829, crossing the Apennine Mountains in Umbria and reaching the Marche region on the east coast. Among the hilltop towns he sketched as he approached Ancona were Macerata, Recanati, Loreto and Osimo.

Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the dominant view depicts ‘Recanati’ in the distance, as indicated by Turner’s upper inscription. It was likely captured as he approached the town from the south-west. Five figures populate the foreground, with features of their dress and headwear swiftly detailed. Separated in the top-left and top-right corners are profiles of two towers, possibly the crenellated civic tower in Recanati known as the Torre del Borgo. This view extends onto folio 45 verso opposite (D14912). Along the bottom of the page, upside down but upright as foliated, is a minor study of the neighbouring town of ‘Macerata’, as labelled by Turner.

Recanati appears elsewhere in the sketchbook on folios 37 recto and 44 recto (D14897, D14909). For Turner’s earlier sketches of this subject from his first major tour of Italy in 1819–20, see Nicola Moorby’s entries in the present catalogue for the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (Tate D14656, D14659, D14668, D14682, D14686–D14695; Turner Bequest CLXXVII).