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 > Pompeii, Amalfi, &c., Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Vico Equense from the Sea; and a View of Vesuvius and Naples from Vico Equense 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Vico Equense from the Sea; and a View of Vesuvius and Naples from Vico Equense’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 62 Recto:
Vico Equense from the Sea; and a View of Vesuvius and Naples from Vico Equense 1819
D15851
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 61
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Olive’ within sketch left-hand edge
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘278’ top left, inverted and ‘61’ bottom left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXV 61’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains two landscape sketches relating to Turner’s journey by sea along the Sorrentine peninsula. The lower vista represents a view from a boat looking towards the town of Vico Equense situated along the cliffs above the coastline on the right. Amongst the buildings visible at the edge of the steep drop towards the sea are the castle, Castello Giusso, and the Cathedral of Santissima Annunziata. The building with the campanile on the left-hand side of the composition meanwhile is the ancient monastery of San Francesco. At the top of the sheet the artist has drawn the view looking in the opposite direction across the Gulf of Naples, north-west towards Vesuvius and Naples itself. On the far left-hand side beyond the Cape of Misenum, are the silhouettes of the islands of Procida and Ischia.
For further sketches of the coast near Vico Equense and Sorrento see folios 61 verso, 62 verso–66 verso (D15850, D15852–D15860; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 60a, 61a–65a).

Nicola Moorby
November 2010

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Vico Equense from the Sea; and a View of Vesuvius and Naples from Vico Equense 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-vico-equense-from-the-sea-and-a-view-of-vesuvius-and-naples-r1138320, accessed 25 April 2024.