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

Turner approached Florence from the west, travelling inland from the coast of Liguria and leaving behind the cities of Livorno and Pisa. As identified by Cecilia Powell, these topographical views of Tuscan landscapes document his journey.1 Their rough execution indicates that Turner was sketching from a moving carriage. Despite the artist introducing a numbering system to label parts of the composition ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’, the views remain difficult to order and demarcate. The various towers and buildings dotting the landscape are similarly hard to identify, barring the domed structure towards the top, which is presumably the Duomo in Florence.

These sketches are out of sequence with the overall itinerary embodied by the sketchbook (see the Introduction), which begins near Genoa and ends near Livorno and Florence. For a general commentary on Turner’s second visit to Florence in 1828, his first encounter with the city in 1819, and a list of relevant works in the present sketchbook, see under folio 2 verso (D21415).