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 > Rome and Florence Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Six Landscape Sketches on the Road from Rome to Florence; including Three of Terni 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Six Landscape Sketches on the Road from Rome to Florence; including Three of Terni’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 24 Verso:
Six Landscape Sketches on the Road from Rome to Florence; including Three of Terni 1819
D16530
Turner Bequest CXCI 24 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 189 x 113 mm
Inscribed by the artist ‘[?G...]’ and ‘Terni’ and ‘Terni’ within sketches and ‘Pink Snow’ and ‘Terni’ and ‘Snow’ within sketch ascending left-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner left Rome sometime in mid to late December and travelled on to Florence. This page contains six sketches which were probably drawn en route from a moving vehicle, retracing part of the road which Turner had taken in September on his journey south towards Rome from Ancona. Annotations by the artist relate at least three of the sketches to Terni, an Umbrian town approximately fifty miles north of Rome, famous for the nearby Cascata or Caduta delle Marmore, also known as the Falls of Terni. In particular the second sketch from top right includes the campanile of the Cathedral of Terni. Following the industrialisation of the area during the nineteenth century, and Allied bombing during the Second World War, this is one of the few buildings which still survive today.1 A related sketch dating from the outward journey to Rome can be found in the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (see Tate D14758; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 54). Turner has also drawn a panoramic view of the landscape surrounding Terni, in which he has noted snow covering the mountains.

Nicola Moorby
February 2009

1
Ros Belford, Martin Dunford, Celia Woolfrey et al, Rough Guide to Italy, New York, London and Delhi 2007, 8th edition, p.669.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Six Landscape Sketches on the Road from Rome to Florence; including Three of Terni 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2009, 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-landscape-sketches-on-the-road-from-rome-to-florence-r1138423, accessed 09 May 2024.