J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 15 Recto:
Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819
D13885
Turner Bequest CLXXI 15
Black ink on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by James Hakewill (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘15’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXI 15’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains advice to Turner on travelling in Italy in preparation for the artist’s first tour of the country in 1819. The author of the inscription is James Hakewill (1778–1843), with whom Turner collaborated on the engraved print project, Picturesque Tour of Italy, published 1820 (see the introduction to the sketchbook). The text was first transcribed by Finberg,1 and is repeated here with minor variations:
the Banker for him – or of | Mr. Joseph Modetti, in the Corso | near the Piazza Colonna, on the | right going down the street. | Hire a couple of horses and a | guide and make one tour to | Albano, Marino ^ Grotto Ferrata ^ Frascati, & Tivoli | and back to Rome. there is a
The comments lead on from folio 14 (D13883) and concern an instruction to try to hire a servant named Lorenzo, previously employed by Hakewill himself during his own sojourn in Rome in 1816–17. He also advises Turner to make a tour of the countryside surrounding the city. Turner visited all of the recommended locations, although instead of a single, all-encompassing tour, he seems to have made separate visits to Tivoli and the towns of the Alban Hills, see the Albano, Nemi, Rome sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXXII), the Tivoli and Rome sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXIX, and the Tivoli sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXXIII). Further notes by Hakewill are on folio 15 verso (D13886) but the continuity of the content on this page can be found on folio 16 (D13887). The outlined itinerary is also repeated to some extent on folio 37 verso (D13931).

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.497.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 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-notes-by-james-hakewill-on-travelling-in-italy-r1138703, accessed 28 March 2024.