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 View of the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Islands of Nisida and Ischia 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘View of the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Islands of Nisida and Ischia’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Verso:
View of the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Islands of Nisida and Ischia 1819
D15667
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 55 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Bay of Baia’ top right, ‘[?Cave] by the wine filled casks’, ‘[?Vines]’, and ‘Fire’ bottom of upper sketch. Also ‘Gate of P’ bottom of sketch on centre right-hand edge and ‘Posilippo’ bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains three on-the-spot sketches associated with Turner’s exploration of the Campi Flegrei (Phlegraean or Burning Fields) to the west of Naples. The two main studies are variant views of the same prospect looking across the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Capo di Posillipo and the island of Nisida on the left, and Cape Misenum (Capo Miseno) and the islands of Procida and Ischia on the right. Turner’s viewpoint appears to be looking south-west from the valley which lies between the Posillipo Hill and Lake Agnano (near present-day Via Caravaggio in Fuorigrotta). A further related drawing can be seen on folio 58 (D15668; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 56), and more detailed and careful versions of both vistas can be found within the Naples: Rome C. Studies sketchbook (Tate D16103 and D16105; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 15 and 17). In particular the inscription referring to ‘wine filled casks’ in the bottom left-hand corner of the upper study appears to find a parallel within the barrels and bottles included in the foreground of one of these compositions (Tate D16103; Turner Bequest CLXXXVII 15). See these entries for a more detailed description of the landscape.
Also in the bottom right-hand corner of the uppermost views is a further thumbnail sketch which Turner has inscribed ‘Gate of P’. As Finberg suggested, this perhaps records the entry point of the port of Pozzuoli.1

Nicola Moorby
May 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.544.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘View of the Bay of Pozzuoli with the Islands of Nisida and Ischia 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-view-of-the-bay-of-pozzuoli-with-the-islands-of-nisida-and-r1138129, accessed 19 September 2024.