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

As identified by the Turner scholars Cecilia Powell and Roland Courtot, this sketch depicts Montefiascone in the Viterbo province of Lazio.1 It forms part of a more extended panorama that continues on folio 44 verso (D21843) opposite. Inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation, the present section is dominated by the city’s domed cathedral, the Basilica of Santa Margherita. Turner’s vantage point, according to Courtot, is from the northern arrival by the Orvieto road.2 For a comparable view of the Basilica of Santa Margherita, together with a full list of Turner’s views of Montefiascone in the present sketchbook, see under folio 1 recto (D21765).

Beneath is a rough outline of an unidentified landscape, while a further landscape study, oriented at a right-angle, fills the bottom-right corner. The accompanying inscription ‘Novo’ may refer to the village of San Lorenzo Nuovo on the banks of Lake Bolsena, which Turner encountered at an earlier stage of his journey as he approached Orvieto.