J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Four Views of Salerno, Including the Porta Catena and the Church of the Annunziata 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 36 Verso:
Four Views of Salerno, Including the Porta Catena and the Church of the Annunziata 1819
D15806
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 36 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Several views within this sketchbook reveal that Turner made a journey by sea between Amalfi and Salerno, although whether from east to west or vice versa is not clear. The views on this page all depict Salerno and the surrounding coastline as seen from the harbour where Turner would have embarked (or disembarked), The uppermost scene even includes a small sail boat which may have been the very one he took. At the bottom of the sheet is a view of the town with the fourteenth-century church, the Chiesa della Santissima Annunziata near Porta Catena, whilst on the summit of the hill to the left is the eighth-century Castello di Arechi (Arechi Castle). For further studies of Salerno see folios 46 verso–47 verso (D15822–D15824) and the Naples, Paestum, Rome sketchbook (Tate D15982–D15985 and D16078–D16079; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI 36–37a and 85a–86).

Nicola Moorby
October 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Four Views of Salerno, Including the Porta Catena and the Church of the Annunziata 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, October 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-four-views-of-salerno-including-the-porta-catena-and-the-r1138273, accessed 19 September 2024.