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 Descent from Castel Sant'Elmo, Naples 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘?The Descent from Castel Sant'Elmo, Naples’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 63 Verso:
?The Descent from Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples 1819
D15681
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 61 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 197 x 122 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject of these four Neapolitan sketches remains unidentified although they may represent views seen from the road down from the Castel Sant’Elmo. There is also some similarity between the central vista and a watercolour by Francis Towne (1739–1816), The Descent from Capodimonte 1781 (British Museum).1

Nicola Moorby
June 2010

1
Reproduced in colour in Giuliano Briganti, Nicola Spinosa and Lindsay Stainton, In the Shadow of Vesuvius: Views of Naples from Baroque to Romanticism 1631–1830, exhibition catalogue, Accademia Italiana delle Arti e delle Arti Applicate, London 1990, p.92. See also http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectid=749038&partid=1&searchText=capodimonte&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&numpages=10&orig=%2fresearch%2fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx&currentPage=6.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘?The Descent from Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, June 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-descent-from-castel-santelmo-naples-r1138141, accessed 20 September 2024.