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 Two Landscapes Including a View of the Bay of Gaeta from Formia 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Landscapes Including a View of the Bay of Gaeta from Formia’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 28 Verso:
Two Landscapes Including a View of the Bay of Gaeta from Formia 1819
D15610
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 27 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
After the town of Itri, the Via Appia rejoins the Tyrrhenian coast at Formia, which until the late nineteenth century was known as Mola di Gaeta. This sketch depicts a view looking south from Formia to the distant headland of the Bay of Gaeta. Turner’s viewpoint here may be the Villa Rubina, the remains of a Roman residence popularly known as the Villa of Cicero, see folio 29 (D15611; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 28). The area had further associations with the Roman orator. A ruined monument believed to be his tomb can be found on the Via Appia just outside of Formia, see the Vatican Fragments sketchbook (Tate D15160; Turner Bequest CLXXX 28a).
The landscape view of a town amidst mountains in the top left-hand corner is currently unidentified.

Nicola Moorby
April 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Landscapes Including a View of the Bay of Gaeta from Formia 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-two-landscapes-including-a-view-of-the-bay-of-gaeta-from-r1138072, accessed 22 September 2024.