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 > Route to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches of Two Figures, and a Town on a Hill in Italy 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Two Figures, and a Town on a Hill in Italy’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 33 Recto:
Sketches of Two Figures, and a Town on a Hill in Italy 1819
D13921
Turner Bequest CLXXI 33
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Boys with Birds’ top left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘33’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXI 33’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There are two distinct drawings on this page. In the top left-hand corner is a very slight study of two figures which Turner has labelled ‘Boys with Birds’. On the right-hand side of the sheet, meanwhile, parallel with the spine of the sketchbook, is an unidentified landscape sketch of a town on a hill, almost certainly related to Turner’s Italian travels.

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Sketches of Two Figures, and a Town on a Hill in Italy 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-sketches-of-two-figures-and-a-town-on-a-hill-in-italy-r1138739, accessed 25 April 2024.