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 > Route to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy; and a Sketch of Belforte del Chienti by Turner 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy; and a Sketch of Belforte del Chienti by Turner’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 23 Recto:
Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy; and a Sketch of Belforte del Chienti by Turner 1819
D13901
Turner Bequest CLXXI 23
Pencil on white wove paper, 88 x 114 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Belforte’ bottom of sketch, top left
Inscribed by James Hakewill in black ink (see main catalogue entry)
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘23’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CLXXI 23’ top right, ascending right-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The inscription on this page represents advice to Turner on travelling in Italy in preparation for the artist’s first tour of the country in 1819. The author 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, which was first transcribed by Finberg,1 is repeated here with minor variations:
Vicenza – | Get a guide to show you | Palladios house and some of | his Palaces. | go to the Rotondo Villa. | Padua. See the church of St. Justina | D[itt]o – St Antonio
Hakewill’s suggestions are based upon his own Italian travels in 1816–17 and related views, including the church of Sant’Antonio in Padua, can be found amidst his own drawings from the time (British School at Rome Library).2 He naturally advocated the same itinerary to Turner, including a return journey from Rome via Ancona, Florence, Bologna and Venice, the latter stage encompassing Vicenza and Padua. Turner, however, adopted a different route and chose to visit Venice on the outward leg instead. The notes continue on folio 24 (D13903).
Turner has also used the right-hand side of the page for a small, on-the-spot landscape sketch. The inscribed place name suggests that is represents a distant view of Belforte del Chienti, a small hillside village in the Apennine Mountains between Macerata and Foligno. Related drawings can be found in the Ancona to Rome sketchbook (Tate D14698 and D14700; Turner Bequest CLXXVII 23a and 24a).

Nicola Moorby
March 2010

1
Finberg 1909, p.498.
2
Tony Cubberley and Luke Herrmann, Twilight of the Grand Tour: A Catalogue of the drawings by James Hakewill in the British School at Rome Library, Rome 1992, nos.6.20 and 6.25, pp.384 and 389, reproduced.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Notes by James Hakewill on Travelling in Italy; and a Sketch of Belforte del Chienti by Turner 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-and-a-sketch-r1138719, accessed 18 April 2024.