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 Eight Sketches from the Road Between Salerno and Cava de' Tirreni, Including Views of the Bay of Salerno, Vietri sul Mare and Molina 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Eight Sketches from the Road Between Salerno and Cava de' Tirreni, Including Views of the Bay of Salerno, Vietri sul Mare and Molina’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 41 Recto:
Eight Sketches from the Road Between Salerno and Cava de’ Tirreni, Including Views of the Bay of Salerno, Vietri sul Mare and Molina 1819
D15988
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 39
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Madona de Angeli’ bottom right of top left sketch, and ‘Bay of Salerno’ far right of third sketch from bottom, and ‘Vietri’ and ‘2 men carrying hops 3 cary | Bowls’ bottom of left-hand sketch second from bottom, and ‘the town of Vietri’ bottom right of right-hand sketch second from bottom, and ‘Moulina’ right-hand side of bottom sketch
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in red ink ‘39’ top left, ascending left-hand edge and ‘245’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXVI 39’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sketches on this page represent a sequence of views seen from the road which leads from Salerno to Cava de’ Tirreni, and ultimately to Naples (present-day Via Madonna degli Angeli and Via Roma). Turner has made successive thumbnail studies whilst travelling along this road including the vista looking east across the town and bay of Salerno towards the distant Plain of Paestum (top right and centre). The tower visible on the far right-hand side of the central sketch (inscribed ‘Bay of Salerno’), is the Torre Crestarella, one of a number of medieval watch-towers built along the Amalfi coast to defend against Saracen invasion. Meanwhile, the two views on the second row from the bottom depict the adjacent town of Vietri sul Mare with the dome and campanile of the seventeenth-century Church of San Giovanni Battista. Finally the subject of the scene at the bottom is Molina, a small town in the valley north of Vietri sul Mare so called because of its water mills (mulino). Turner has pictured the old aqueduct, the so-called Ponte del Diavolo, which used to be the town’s dominant landmark until it was destroyed by a flood in 1954.
For further sketches from this road see folios 41 verso–44 (D15989–D15994; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 39a–44).

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Eight Sketches from the Road Between Salerno and Cava de’ Tirreni, Including Views of the Bay of Salerno, Vietri sul Mare and Molina 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-eight-sketches-from-the-road-between-salerno-and-cava-de-r1137912, accessed 26 April 2024.