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 Part of a View of Florence from Villa Guadagni, near San Domenico di Fiesole 1819

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Part of a View of Florence from Villa Guadagni, near San Domenico di Fiesole’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 76 Verso:
Part of a View of Florence from Villa Guadagni, near San Domenico di Fiesole 1819
D16613
Turner Bequest CXCI 76 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 113 x 189 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘River M’
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
As Cecilia Powell first identified, this sketch depicts part of a panoramic view taken from the Villa Guadagni, situated near the Church of San Domenico on the south-western outskirts of Fiesole.1 The composition continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 77 (D16614), but this side depicts the vista looking south-west towards the heart of distant Florence with the silhouettes of the Duomo and San Lorenzo visible along the horizon. The building in the central foreground is the old monastery of Badia Fiesolana (present-day headquarters of the European University Institute), and to the right of this Turner has indicated with a written note the winding course of the small River Mugnone.
Further sketches from Fiesole can be found on folios 30 verso, 31, 74–76, 77 verso–79 verso, 84 (D16542, D16543, D16608–D16612, D16615–D16619, D16627).

Nicola Moorby
February 2011

1
Powell 1984, p.431.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Part of a View of Florence from Villa Guadagni, near San Domenico di Fiesole 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 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-part-of-a-view-of-florence-from-villa-guadagni-near-san-r1138506, accessed 25 April 2024.