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 Views of the Coast near Sorrento 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Views of the Coast near Sorrento’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 64 Verso:
Views of the Coast near Sorrento 1819
D15856
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 63 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Sor’ bottom right of second sketch from top, ‘Sor’ bottom right of third sketch from top, ‘Elmo’ and ‘Capomonte’ above second sketch from bottom, and ‘Bay of N to S’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains several studies taken from a boat along the coast near Sorrento. The scene at the top appears to depict the village of Marina Grande at Sorrento with Vesuvius in the background to the north.1 The same location can be seen on folio 60 (D15847; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 59). Second and third from the top are related views of the coastline between Alimuri and Sorrento which shows the steep tufa cliffs and the Lattari Mountains beyond. As Turner’s inscriptions indicate the remaining drawings at the bottom of the page represent the view looking in the opposite direction north and west across the Bay of Naples. The three studies form a continuous sequence from Vesuvius to Naples with Capodimonte and the hill of Castel Sant’Elmo, and ending in the Posillipo Hill and the islands of Procida and Ischia.
For further views of the Sorrentine coastline from the sea see folios 61 verso–63 verso and 65–66 verso (D15850–D15854 and D15857–D15860; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 60a–62a and 64–65a).

Nicola Moorby
November 2010

1
Compare a watercolour by James Baker Pyne (1800–1879), Marina Grande, Sorrento 1858, see Victorian and British Impressionist Pictures, Christie’s, London, 17 November 2010, lot 27, reproduced in colour.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Views of the Coast near Sorrento 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-views-of-the-coast-near-sorrento-r1138325, accessed 25 April 2024.