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 The Marinella Seafront, Naples, from Castello del Carmine 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Marinella Seafront, Naples, from Castello del Carmine’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 51 Recto:
The Marinella Seafront, Naples, from Castello del Carmine 1819
D15654
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 49
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Nets’ bottom left
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘281’ bottom right and ‘49’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIV 49’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner made a large number of sketches along the Neapolitan waterfront. This sketch depicts the view looking west along the Marinella seafront (present-day Via della Marinella/Via Nuova Marina) towards the old port and the hill of Castel Sant’Elmo. The building visible in the centre of the composition with a flag flying from the ramparts is the Castello del Carmine, a fourteenth-century castle which formed part of the old walled city of Naples. The fortress was demolished during the programme of urban renewal at the beginning of the twentieth century, although two circular towers and part of the wall can still be seen near the Piazza Mercato and the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. Immediately in front of the castle is one of the grand Baroque fountains which can be found throughout Naples, whilst on the opposite side of the road near the foreground is a religious tabernacle.1 For a more detailed study of the same subject see folio 51 verso (D15655; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 49a).

Nicola Moorby
May 2010

1
Compare a late nineteenth-century engraving by De Musset, reproduced in Leone Gasparini, Antiche Fontane di Napoli, Naples 1979, p.28, fig.10.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The Marinella Seafront, Naples, from Castello del Carmine 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-the-marinella-seafront-naples-from-castello-del-carmine-r1138116, accessed 05 October 2025.