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 Castel Nuovo, Naples, with the Mole Lighthouse 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Castel Nuovo, Naples, with the Mole Lighthouse’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 59 Verso:
Castel Nuovo, Naples, with the Mole Lighthouse 1819
D15671
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 57 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘13’ within walls of castle, and ‘[?Moat]’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell first identified, the subject of this sketch is the Castel Nuovo, a large fortress also known as the Maschio Angioino, which stands beside the quayside near the main port in Naples.1 Originally dating from the thirteenth century, the castle with its five cylindrical towers has been extended and rebuilt a number of times. This study depicts the northern side from present-day Piazza Municipio, with the Torre di Beverello on the left and the Torre di San Giorgio and Torre di Mezzo on the right. The campanile rising above the walls of the fortress in the centre is no longer extant. Visible in the distance on the far left-hand side is the lighthouse on the Mole in the old port.
Further studies of the Castel Nuovo can be seen on folios 59, 64 verso–65 verso and 69 verso (D15670, D15683–D15685 and D15693; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 57, 62a–63a and 67a).

Nicola Moorby
May 2010

1
Powell 1984, p.424.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Castel Nuovo, Naples, with the Mole Lighthouse 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-castel-nuovo-naples-with-the-mole-lighthouse-r1138133, accessed 23 April 2024.