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 Town on a Hill, Seen from a Bridge, ?Sant'Agata 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Town on a Hill, Seen from a Bridge, ?Sant'Agata’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 62 Verso:
Town on a Hill, Seen from a Bridge, ?Sant’Agata 1819
D16028
Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 60 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘[?Red]’ bottom left, and ‘St Agatha’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Despite Turner’s inscription, ‘St Agatha’, at the bottom of the page, the location of these three landscape sketches currently remains unidentified. The details are somewhat rough and schematic but the main composition appears to represent a hilltop town with distant mountains, seen from a bridge or aqueduct. There are a couple of distinctive buildings with domes and towers which are probably churches. The drawing continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 63 (D16029; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 61). Other studies bearing the same annotation can be found on folio 90 (D16082; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 88).

Nicola Moorby
July 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Town on a Hill, Seen from a Bridge, ?Sant’Agata 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-town-on-a-hill-seen-from-a-bridge-santagata-r1137952, accessed 18 September 2024.