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 Porta del Carmine, Naples 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Porta del Carmine, Naples’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 79 Recto:
Porta del Carmine, Naples 1819
D15883
Turner Bequest CLXXXV 77
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by ?John Ruskin in blue ink ‘278’ top left, inverted and ‘77’ bottom left, inverted
Stamped in black ‘CLXXXV 77’ top left, inverted
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Porta del Carmine was a fifteenth-century gateway in the medieval walls of Naples which stood on the eastern side of the city at the junction between present-day Via Soprammuro and Via del Carmine. Demolished during the 1860s, the gate is known to have been comprised of two cylindrical towers and an arched doorway decorated with bas-reliefs and frescoes.1 As Turner’s sketch reveals, one side (left) adjoined the fortress known as the Castello di Carmine, whilst visible behind was the soaring campanile of the Church of Santa Maria del Carmine. The road beyond the gate led to the Piazza del Mercato (the Marketplace). The structure in the right-hand foreground appears to be a monumental fountain of Baroque design.
Turner appears to have followed the line of the eastern walls from Porta del Carmine north towards Porta Capuana, see folio 79 verso (D15884; Turner Bequest CLXXXV 77a).

Nicola Moorby
October 2010

1
Compare a drawing by Sir Francis Seymour Haden (1818–1910), Porta del Carmine 1844 (Tate, T09445). Bas-reliefs from the gate are now in the collection of the Certosa di San Martino museum.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Porta del Carmine, Naples 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-porta-del-carmine-naples-r1138354, accessed 25 April 2024.