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 Vesuvius from Castel Nuovo, Naples 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Vesuvius from Castel Nuovo, Naples’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 65 Recto:
Vesuvius from Castel Nuovo, Naples 1819
D15684
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 63
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘N[...] [?Sta]’ bottom right, parallel with right-hand edge
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘281’ bottom right and ‘63’ top right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIV 63’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This sketch depicts the northern side of the Castel Nuovo, a large fortress also known as the Maschio Angioino, which stands beside the quayside near the main port in Naples. The castle appears in a number of Turner’s drawings of the city but this view looks east from the north-west corner of the former outer walls and moat in the direction of the seafront (present-day Piazza Municipio). The vast outline of Monte Somma and Vesuvius with its smoking crater dominates the background.1 Further studies of the Castel Nuovo can be seen on folios 59–59 verso, 64 verso, 65 verso and 69 verso (D15670–D15671, D15683, D15685 and D15693; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 57–57a, 62a, 63a and 67a).
Also in the bottom right-hand corner of the page, parallel with the right-hand edge is a small thumbnail sketch which appears to depict a view of the port and Castel dell’Ovo with Vesuvius in the background.

Nicola Moorby
June 2010

1
For a similar composition see a painting by Antonio Joli (circa 1700–1777), The Castle Esplanade (Alisio Collection, Naples), reproduced in Roberto Middione and Brigitt Daprà, Reality and Imagination in Neapolitan Painting of the 17th to 19th Centuries, exhibition catalogue, City Art Centre, Edinburgh 1988, no.21, pp.24 and 59.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Vesuvius from Castel Nuovo, 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-vesuvius-from-castel-nuovo-naples-r1138144, accessed 25 April 2024.