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 Vesuvius from Castel Sant'Elmo, Naples; and ?View of the Ausoni Mountains near Fondi 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Vesuvius from Castel Sant'Elmo, Naples; and ?View of the Ausoni Mountains near Fondi’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 52 Verso:
Vesuvius from Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples; and ?View of the Ausoni Mountains near Fondi 1819
D16011
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 50 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Mt Coelia Fondi’ bottom centre of top sketch
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two distinct landscape sketches. The lower drawing represents Vesuvius and the Bay of Naples seen from a point to the north-west of Castel Sant’Elmo. A small part of the composition spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 53 (D16012; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 51).
The subject of the upper vista meanwhile is not conclusively identified although it appears to depict the line of the Ausoni mountains from Fondi, a town on the Via Appia between Terracina and Formia. Turner’s handwritten inscription appears to read ‘Mt Coelia Fondi’ although there is no peak of this name visible within the area. For related sketches see folios 1 verso 57 verso–58 (D15909, D16019–D16020; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 1a and 55a–56) and the inside front cover (D40949).

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Vesuvius from Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples; and ?View of the Ausoni Mountains near Fondi 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-vesuvius-from-castel-santelmo-naples-and-view-of-the-ausoni-r1137935, accessed 20 September 2024.