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

The page was used both vertically and horizontally drawing was made with the page turned horizontally. At the top is a substantial building with a chalet-type pitched roof, with two spires beyond and mountains in the distance; the spires appear to be shown again in one of the drawings on the verso (D32360), in a view of Pieve di Cadore, in the Dolomites south-east of Cortina. The alignment here suggests a view to the north-east, with the spire of the church of Santa Maria Nascente beyond the shallower spire or pitched roof (now gone) on the tower of the Palazzo della Magnifica Comunità di Cadore.

Owing to other changes and later buildings, the viewpoint is uncertain, as is the identity of the building in the foreground. It is possibly the house off the Via Arsenale regarded as the birthplace of the major Venetian artist Titian (c.1490–1576), now a museum, which has since undergone extensive changes. See under D32360, where there is a clear view of it from the north-east.

Below, using the page turned horizontally both ways, Turner made views of castles among mountains, or perhaps studies of different aspects of the same structure. The inscription above one, likely a place name, has yet to be fully deciphered. A long sequence of sketches, mostly characterised as ‘Mountains’ by Finberg (with occasional identifications and transcriptions of the place names marked by the artist), lies between folios 7 recto and 76 recto (D32275–D32411).1 See the sketchbook’s Introduction for the likely overall route between Bregenz and Venice.2