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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin Italian Scene: A Bridge among Hills, with a Distant Town c.1796

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin, ‘Italian Scene: A Bridge among Hills, with a Distant Town’ c.1796
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
Italian Scene: A Bridge among Hills, with a Distant Town c.1796
D36567
Turner Bequest CCCLXXVI 8
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 184 x 263 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXVI – 8’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Provenance:
Probably commissioned by Dr Thomas Monro
Monro’s posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 26–28 June and 1–2 July 1833 (day and lot number not known)
Bought by or on behalf of Turner
The pencil work is by Girtin. This was copied from a sketch by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797), recorded in Beaumont tracing 31, 3 (after Cozens; Yale Center for British Art, New Haven). The subject is given as ‘Between Castel del Bosco and La Scala’.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by Thomas Girtin in pencil ‘between Castel [?del Bosco and La Scala];’ and in another hand ‘[?Dr Monro’s | unfinished]’; stamped in brown ink with Turner Bequest monogram. The inscription is almost wholly illegible; Finberg recorded in a manuscript note1 the words that are still visible today. They presumably transcribed the title of Cozens’s drawing given on the Beaumont tracing.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

1
Tate catalogue files.

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘Italian Scene: A Bridge among Hills, with a Distant Town c.1796 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-thomas-girtin-italian-scene-a-bridge-among-hills-with-a-r1141299, accessed 27 April 2024.