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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Venice to Ancona Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Cesena from the Abbey of the Madonna del Monte, with the River Savio Below 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Cesena from the Abbey of the Madonna del Monte, with the River Savio Below’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 54 Recto:
Cesena from the Abbey of the Madonna del Monte, with the River Savio Below 1819
D14586
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 50
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 184 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘Madonna | M[...]’ centre left and ‘Savio’ centre right
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘50’ bottom right (now faint)
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI – 50’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Cecilia Powell has confirmed Finberg’s tentative identification of this drawing1 as a view of Cesena from the elevated viewpoint of the abbey of the Madonna del Monte,2 looking west-north-west towards the Rocca Malatestiana fortress beyond the tower of the church of Sant’Agostino, with the River Savio marked below to the right. There is a similar view on folio 53 verso opposite (D14585; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 49a); for others of the city on adjacent pages, see under folio 46 verso (D14573; CLXXVI 42a).
Powell has commented on the relatively uneventful phase of Turner’s journey between leaving Bologna and reaching Rimini (folios 43 recto–60 verso; D14566–D14598; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 39a–56a);3 for his overall route south-east between Bologna and Ancona, see the sketchbook’s Introduction.

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
See Finberg 1909, I, p.518.
2
See Powell 1984, p.407.
3
Ibid., pp.89–90, 465 note 98.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘Cesena from the Abbey of the Madonna del Monte, with the River Savio Below 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-cesena-from-the-abbey-of-the-madonna-del-monte-with-the-r1186322, accessed 21 September 2024.