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

This rough depiction of a craggy mountainous landscape was possibly executed by Turner from a moving carriage. While a precise location is difficult to identify, the geographer and Turner researcher Roland Courtot has proposed the northern section of the Apuan Alps.1 The buildings possibly represent one of the villages Turner encountered around the Ligurian-Tuscan border between La Spezia and Massa. See folios 36 verso, 37 verso and 38 recto (D21483, D21485–D21486) for comparable sketches of hilltop locations such as Arcola, Trebiano or Castelnuovo Magra.