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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Second Italian Tour 1828-9 > Rome to Rimini Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Loreto, from the North 1829

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Loreto, from the North’ 1829
Folio 33 Recto:
Loreto, from the North 1829
D14889
Turner Bequest CLXXVIII 33
Pencil on white laid paper, 97 x 132 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘[?sea]’ towards top centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘33’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVIII – 33’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Having departed from Rome, Turner journeyed north-east during the first week of January 1829, crossing the Apennine Mountains in Umbria and reaching the Marche region on the east coast. Among the hilltop towns he sketched as he approached Ancona were Macerata, Recanati, Loreto and Osimo.
The view of buildings and towers in the upper-left section of this page appears to extend the vista on folio 32 verso opposite (D14888), which depicts the hilltop Sanctuary of Santa Casa in Loreto. As noted by Cecilia Powell, Turner’s vantage point is from the road to Ancona to the north of the town, looking southwards towards the Sanctuary.1
Shortly after returning to London in February 1829, Turner set to work on an oil painting depicting the Sanctuary of Santa Casa in Loreto, The Loretto Necklace (Tate N00509), the erroneous spelling his own.2 With the hilltop basilica in the distance, seen from the north, the composition bears similarities to the present sketch, albeit with the addition of a large tree in the foreground. The necklace of the title was thought to refer to the rosary and the cult of the Madonna at Loreto. The finished picture was prepared for the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition that year, which opened in early May, Turner having accurately predicted that the paintings he completed in Rome would not be shipped to London in time.
For further studies of Loreto in the present sketchbook, see folios 21 recto, 32 verso and 41 verso (D14869, D14888, D14903). Turner sketched Loreto extensively during his first major tour of Italy in 1819–20; see Nicola Moorby’s entries in the present catalogue for the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (Tate D14653–D14655, D14657, D14662, D14664, D14670–D14680, D14685, D14708; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 1–3, 5a, 6a, 9a–14a, 17, 29).
In the top-right corner is a rough outline of an unidentified bridge, presumably near the Adriatic coast; Turner’s inscription appears to read ‘sea’. The markings beneath and the lower study, inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, are difficult to identify.

Hannah Kaspar
November 2024

1
Powell 1984, p.440.
2
Butlin and Joll 1984, p.185, no.331, pl.334.

How to cite

Hannah Kaspar, ‘Loreto, from the North 1829’, catalogue entry, November 2024, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, February 2025, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/loreto-from-the-north-r1210259, accessed 07 June 2026.