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

A rare glimpse in this sketchbook of a building’s interior, this ecclesiastical scene is one of five consecutive works relating to the city of Viterbo: see also folios 40 recto and verso, and 41 verso–42 recto (D21834–D21835, D21837–D21838). As identified by Cecilia Powell, Turner’s subject here is the left transept of the Basilica of San Francesco alla Rocca. Turner’s inscription ‘St Francis’ in the top-left corner confirms the identity of this Romanesque basilica, which was restored in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with Baroque elements.1 This study is inverted relative to the sketchbook’s foliation.

A notable feature of the composition, as observed by Powell, is Turner’s rapid outline of Sebastiano del Piombo’s Pietà in the bottom-left corner.2 Commissioned for the Basilica of San Francesco by the cleric Giovanni Botonti, this oil painting on panel was executed in c.1516–17. While it remained in situ at the time of Turner’s visit in 1828, it has since been moved to Viterbo’s Museo Civico, housed in the Church of Santa Maria della Verità. According to Powell, the inclusion of this detail evidences Turner’s interest in ‘expressive figure studies’: although the sketch is ‘rather rough and ready, there can be no doubt that Turner would have been impressed by the majesty of Sebastiano’s painting, and it is very likely that he, like his contemporaries, knew of the tradition that associated Michelangelo with its design.’3