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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1836-47 Modern painter > South-Eastern France and Genoa 1838 > Coast of Genoa Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner San Remo, from the Harbour 1838

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘San Remo, from the Harbour’ 1838
Folio 10 Recto:
San Remo, from the Harbour 1838
D21289
Turner Bequest CCXXXII 10
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 157 mm
Inscribed in red ink ‘10’ top right, ascending vertically
Stamped in black ‘CCXXXII 10’ top right, ascending vertically
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has identified the sketches on this page, executed with the book turned horizontally, as views of San Remo, a small city on Italy’s Ligurian coast, situated approximately eighteen miles from the present-day border with France.1
The drawings appear to represent a split, panoramic view of the city taken from the harbour looking towards the west. The lower design depicts the shoreline, including the eighteenth-century Forte Santa Tecla in the centre. Several boats are visible, docked in the port around the structure. The line of topography is continued in the upper vista, where the view extends as far as the Santuario Madonna della Costa, perched high within the old town, its Baroque façade and dome visible in the top right-hand corner.
For further sketches of San Remo, see folio 49 verso (D21357).

Nicola Moorby
October 2018

Revised by Hayley Flynn
June 2025

1
Roland Courtot, ‘Carnet de voyage de Turner: 9. Notebook CCXXXII “Côte de Génès” (1838?)’, Hypotheses, 24 August 2018, accessed 24 June 2024, https://carnetswt.hypotheses.org/949.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘San Remo, from the Harbour 1838’, catalogue entry, October 2018, revised by Hayley Flynn, June 2025, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2026, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/san-remo-from-the-harbour-r1213466, accessed 16 September 2026.