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 Florence from Piazza Cavour and Porta San Gallo 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Florence from Piazza Cavour and Porta San Gallo’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 59 Verso:
Florence from Piazza Cavour and Porta San Gallo 1819
D16584
Turner Bequest CXCI 59 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 100 x 113 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Florence’ bottom left and ‘Red’ bottom centre
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Turner’s location for this distant view of the Duomo and tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence is the Piazza Cavour (present-day Piazza della Libertà) and the Porta San Gallo, the northernmost entry gate to the city. The structure dominating the right-hand side of the composition is a triumphal arch, erected during the early eighteenth century to celebrate the succession of Habsburg-Lorraine rule from the Medicis in 1737. Further sketches can be seen on folios 59 and 70 (D16583 and D16603).
Part of the page has been torn away, presumably before the sketch was made.

Nicola Moorby
January 2011

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Florence from Piazza Cavour and Porta San Gallo 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 2011, 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-florence-from-piazza-cavour-and-porta-san-gallo-r1138477, accessed 24 April 2024.