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 Inside the Grotto of Posillipo, Naples 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Inside the Grotto of Posillipo, Naples’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 54 Recto:
Inside the Grotto of Posillipo, Naples 1819
D15660
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 52
Pencil on white wove paper, 197 x 122 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘281’ top right, ascending right-hand edge and ‘52’ top left, ascending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIV 1’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This slight sketch, as well as other related drawings on folios 53 verso and 54 verso (D15659 and D15661; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 51a and 52a), represent Turner’s impressions of his experience walking through the Grotto of Posillipo (known today as the Crypta Neapolitana), a Roman tunnel through the Posillipo Hill which was built during the first century BC in order to link Naples with Pozzuoli to the west. An impressive feat of ancient engineering, legend had it that the tunnel been magically created by the classical poet, Virgil, whose villa was said to be nearby. Nearly half a mile in length, it was both an important thoroughfare and a popular tourist attraction, and represented an established motif for British artists visiting the city.1
The darkness inside the tunnel would have made on-the-spot sketching difficult, although a dim light was admitted into the interior by two apertures bored through the rock. The forms and outlines within the artist’s swift pencil study are disorientated and overlapping, suggesting that he was unable to see what he was doing. Nevertheless, the rough lines capture a sense of the impressive height of the cavernous passageway and the craggy walls and ceiling. The scene includes a number of travellers passing through the tunnel, some on foot and others mounted. A more detailed and conventional view of the entrance to the Grotto can be seen in the Naples, Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16098; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 11).

Nicola Moorby
April 2010

1
Images of the tunnel include, for example, Thomas Jones (1742–1803), The Grotto of Posillipo, oil on paper, 1782 (Gere Collection), William Pars (1742–82), The Grotto at Posillipo (Birmingham City Museum and Art Gallery) and Francis Towne (1740–1816), The Grotto at Posillipo, watercolour, 1781 (British Museum), all reproduced in colour in Anna Ottani Cavina, Un Paese Incantato: Italia Dipinta da Thomas Jones a Corot, exhibition catalogue, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Parigi and Palazzo Te, Mantova, Italy 2001, nos.38–40, pp.60–3, and Francis W. Hawcroft, Travels in Italy 1776–1783: Based on the ‘Memoirs’ of Thomas Jones, exhibition catalogue, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 1988, nos.132–5, pp.111 and 116. See also John ‘Warwick’ Smith (1749–1831), Grotto of Pausilippo 1778–9, watercolour (Tate, T08492), and drawings by James Hakewill (1778–1843), 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, nos.5.51–2, pp.281–3.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Inside the Grotto of Posillipo, Naples 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-inside-the-grotto-of-posillipo-naples-r1138122, accessed 27 April 2024.