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 So-Called Temple of Diana in the Bay of Baiae; ?Boats on the Seafront at Naples; and Studies of Figures 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The So-Called Temple of Diana in the Bay of Baiae; ?Boats on the Seafront at Naples; and Studies of Figures’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 92 Recto:
The So-Called Temple of Diana in the Bay of Baiae; ?Boats on the Seafront at Naples; and Studies of Figures 1819
D15737
Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 90
Pencil on white wove paper, 122 x 197 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘[?Venus]’ and ‘Sea’ bottom right of sketch, top right
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘281’ top left, inverted and ‘90’ bottom left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXIV 90’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell first identified,1 the subject of the study in the top right-hand corner of this page is the so-called Temple of Diana, a Roman bath-house with a vaulted half-dome roof which is one of a number of ruined buildings in the ancient bathing resort of the Bay of Baiae.2 Further studies can be found on folios 80 verso, 82 and 85 (D15714, D15717 and D15723; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 78a, 80 and 83). The ruin features in Turner’s later oil painting, The Bay of Baiae, with Apollo and the Sibyl exhibited 1823 (Tate, N00505).3
The lower vista is not conclusively identified but it appears to represent the seafront at Naples with Vesuvius in the background. The structures along the quayside resemble the grand Baroque fountains and tabernacles which could be found in the Marinella and Santa Lucia districts of the city, see, for example, folios 51 and 60 verso (D15654 and D15675; Turner Bequest CLXXXIV 49 and 58c).
In the top left-hand corner of the sheet is a group of rough thumbnail figure studies.

Nicola Moorby
June 2010

1
Powell 1984, p.425.
2
For sketches of the ‘temple’ by other artists see John Robert Cozens (1752–97), The Temple of Diana on the Bay of Baia ?1782, (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester), reproduced at http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/collection/advsearch/objdisp/?irn=2928&QueryPage=%2Fcollection%2Fadvsearch%2Fresults%2F&QueryName=BasicQuery&QueryTerms=temple+of+diana&StartAt=1&QueryOption=all&all=SummaryData|AdmWebMetadata&Submit=Search; a drawing by Robert Adam (1728–92) from ?1755 (Sir John Soane’s Museum), reproduced at http://www.soane.org.uk/drawings/index.cfm?display_scheme=181&object_id=512, accessed June 2010; and John ‘Warwick’ Smith (1749–1831), Remains of the Temple of Diana on the Coast of Baia, near Naples, 1808 (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), reproduced in Francis W. Hawcroft, Travels in Italy 1776–1783: Based on the “Memoirs” of Thomas Jones, exhibition catalogue, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 1988, no.138, p.114.
3
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, no.230.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘The So-Called Temple of Diana in the Bay of Baiae; ?Boats on the Seafront at Naples; and Studies of Figures 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-so-called-temple-of-diana-in-the-bay-of-baiae-boats-on-r1138198, accessed 24 April 2024.