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 > Gandolfo to Naples Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Sketches of Itri, from the Via Appia 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches of Itri, from the Via Appia’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 25 Verso:
Sketches of Itri, from the Via Appia 1819
D15604
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 24 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 197 x 122 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The sketches on this page represent the historic city of Itri, located amidst the Arunci mountains on the nineteenth century between Rome and Naples.1 As Turner’s drawings show, the western approach on the Via Appia from Fondi presented a picturesque prospect, particularly when seen from a distance. The topography is dominated by the towers of the castle, comprised of one square and one polygonal, as well as one circular connected by a curtain wall sloping down the hill. Also silhouetted on the left is the campanile of the Church of San Michele Arcangelo. Compare a contemporaneous view by James Hakewill (1778–1843), Town and Castle of Itri 1816 (British School at Rome Library), which Turner may have seen.2 Much of Itri was devastated by Allied bombing during the Second World War. For an alternative view from the south-east see folio 26 (D15605; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 25) and the Naples, Paestum, Rome sketchbook (Tate D15952–D15953; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 22–22a).

Nicola Moorby
April 2010

1
See photograph in Consociazione Turistica Italiana, Attraverso Italia Illustrazione delle Regioni Italiane: Lazio, vol.11, Milan 1943, p.190, fig.44.
2
Reproduced in Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, no.5.38, p.264.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Sketches of Itri, from the Via Appia 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 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-sketches-of-itri-from-the-via-appia-r1138066, accessed 20 September 2024.