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 > Marseilles to Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Marina di Andora, from the South-West 1828

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Marina di Andora, from the South-West’ 1828
Folio 49 Recto:
Marina di Andora, from the South-West 1828
D21227
Turner Bequest CCXXXI 49
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 174 mm
Inscribed in pencil by Turner ‘Red [?Roof]’ centre left, ‘Stones | Across Bay’ centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘49’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXI 49’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified the subject of this sketch, with the page turned horizontally, as Marina di Andora, a town also known as Andora, which lies in a river valley on the Ligurian coast between Oneglia (present-day Imperia) and Alassio.1 Turner’s viewpoint is the shoreline to the south-west of the town, looking north across the valley, towards the historic village of Castello, situated on a small hill inland, just visible to the centre-right of the composition. For a closer and more detailed study of this quarter with its castle and the church of Santi Giacomo e Felippo, see the verso (D21228).
Dominating the background are the mountains of the Ligurian Apennines. Turner has annotated the sketch with an inscription, ‘Stones across Bay’, presumably denoting a man-made dyke or wall traversing the bay.

Nicola Moorby
April 2017

Revised by Hannah Kaspar
November 2024

1
Roland Courtot, ‘Les Carnets de William Turner: Recherches d’identification et de localisation des dessins’, unpublished research notes, Université de Provence à Aix, April 2008, p.6, as ‘Marina di Andorra’ (shared with former Tate cataloguer Nicola Moorby in email correspondence at that date).

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Marina di Andora, from the South-West 1828’, catalogue entry, April 2017, revised by Hannah Kaspar, 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/marina-di-andora-from-the-south-west-r1209905, accessed 08 September 2025.