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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > First Italian Tour 1819-20 > Naples, Paestum and Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Five Sketches of Salerno and the Bay 1819

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Five Sketches of Salerno and the Bay’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 38 Verso:
Five Sketches of Salerno and the Bay 1819
D15983
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 36 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘sea’ bottom centre of top sketch, and ‘sea’ bottom centre left of second sketch from top. Also ‘sea’ bottom centre, parallel with left-hand edge [refers to sketch continuing on opposite sheet]
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sequence of sketches on this page appears to depict views of the rugged coastline around Salerno. At the top is one of the many medieval watch-towers which are dotted along the length of the Amalfi coastline, possibly the Torre Crestarella between Salerno and Vietri sul Mare.1 The third and fourth studies from the top meanwhile represent the port itself from the east with the castle (Castello di Arecchi) overlooking the bay on the hill to the right. Similar views can be seen on folio 37 verso and (D15981; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 35a).
Also at the bottom of this sheet is a small part of the landscape composition from the opposite double-page spread, see folio 39 (D15984; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 37).

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

1
See for example views in a 1793 sketchbook (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester) by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797), reproduced in Anthony Blunt, Catalogue of Seven Sketch-Books by John Robert Cozens, Sothebys, London 1973, vol.III, nos.11, 12, 15, 16, 18.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Five Sketches of Salerno and the Bay 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2010, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, December 2012, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-five-sketches-of-salerno-and-the-bay-r1137907, accessed 19 April 2024.