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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Six Sketches of the Amalfi Coast from the Sea, Including Maiori, Minori and Amalfi, and a Distant View of Capri 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 57 Verso:
Six Sketches of the Amalfi Coast from the Sea, Including Maiori, Minori and Amalfi, and a Distant View of Capri 1819
D15844
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 57 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Amafi Docks’, ‘Min Mare’ and ‘Marouri’ underneath top sketch. Also ‘Madona Bono D[...] good God’ centre right-hand edge, and ‘Capri’, ‘[?Expo] strada’ and ‘[?Pouliare]’ within lower sketches
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner travelled by boat between Salerno and Sorrento, sketching the rugged coastal landscape from the sea. This page contains several sketches relating to that journey. The uppermost view, for example, depicts the stretch of coastline on the approach to Amalfi and the artist has annotated the drawing with the names of the towns visible along the shoreline including Maiori, Minori and Amalfi itself. The scene in the bottom left-hand corner meanwhile depicts a distant view looking west with the Sorrentine peninsula and the island of Capri. Also on the page are three studies of one or more of the sixteenth-century watch-towers (known as the Torri Saracena or Saracen Towers) which formed a defensive chain in this part of southern Italy.
Further sketches documenting the sea journey from Salerno to Sorrento can be found on folios 47 verso–67 (D15824–D15861).

Nicola Moorby
October 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Six Sketches of the Amalfi Coast from the Sea, Including Maiori, Minori and Amalfi, and a Distant View of Capri 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-six-sketches-of-the-amalfi-coast-from-the-sea-including-r1138311, accessed 28 March 2024.