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 from the Ascent of Vesuvius, Including a Distant View of Sorrento and Capri 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Sketches from the Ascent of Vesuvius, Including a Distant View of Sorrento and Capri’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 45 Verso:
Sketches from the Ascent of Vesuvius, Including a Distant View of Sorrento and Capri 1819
D15643
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 43 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell first identified, Turner made a series of sketches of Naples and the surrounding landscape as seen from the ascent to the summit of Vesuvius, see folio 46 verso (D15645; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 44a).1 The sketches on this page are associated with that expedition. The upper vista depicts the view looking south/south-east from the lower slopes of the mountain towards the Sorrentine peninsula and the island of Capri. The lower study represents part of the view looking in the opposite direction across the Bay of Naples, and is continued on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 46 (D15644; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 44).

Nicola Moorby
May 2010

1
Powell 1984, p.424.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Sketches from the Ascent of Vesuvius, Including a Distant View of Sorrento and Capri 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, May 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-from-the-ascent-of-vesuvius-including-a-distant-r1138105, accessed 24 April 2024.