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 > Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Distant View of the Superga, Turin, from the South; and Part of a Distant View of Turin from the East 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Distant View of the Superga, Turin, from the South; and Part of a Distant View of Turin from the East’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Verso:
Distant View of the Superga, Turin, from the South; and Part of a Distant View of Turin from the East 1819
D14189
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 22 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Superga of Turin is an eighteenth-century basilica church which stands on a hill of the same name to the east of the city. It has long been an attraction for tourists, not least because of the exceptional panoramic view seen from the square in front of the church, looking across Turin to the Alps beyond. Indeed, prior to embarking upon his 1819 Italian tour, Turner made a watercolour of this very view based upon a drawing by James Hakewill (1778–1843), his collaborator for the recent print project Hakewill’s Picturesque Views of Italy.1 Turner’s sketch here, parallel with the left-hand edge of the page, depicts the distant Superga from the south, probably during the return journey from his short detour to nearby Moncalieri. A further drawing can be found on folio 37 (D14215; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 36). Surprisingly, however, there is no visual evidence to suggest that Turner actually visited the Superga himself.
The page also contains a separate landscape sketch, part of a distant view of Turin from the east which looks as though it was originally continued on folio 25 (D14192; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 24). Finberg listed a leaf ‘23’/‘23a’ between the present page and folio 25 as ‘Missing’,2 and a blank sheet has been inserted in its place to preserve the integrity of the sketchbook pagination (see introductory Technical notes for a concordance of folio numbers). However, the assumption that there was ever a page at that point may have been an error.

Nicola Moorby
December 2012

1
Turin from the Portico of the Superga Church, 1818, watercolour on paper (private collection). See Andrew Wilton, The Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Fribourg 1979, no.717. See also Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A Catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, no.2.17, p.133.
2
Finberg 1909, p.508.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Distant View of the Superga, Turin, from the South; and Part of a Distant View of Turin from the East 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, December 2012, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-distant-view-of-the-superga-turin-from-the-south-and-part-of-r1142712, accessed 05 May 2025.