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 > Italian Guide Book Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Notes by Turner from Eustace's 'A Classical Tour Through Italy' c.1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Notes by Turner from Eustace's 'A Classical Tour Through Italy'’ c.1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 14 Verso:
Notes by Turner from Eustace’s ‘A Classical Tour Through Italy’ circa 1819
D13958
Turner Bequest CLXXII 14 a
Inscribed by the artist in black ink (see main catalogue entry) on white wove paper, 155 x 99 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page is one of several sides of extensive notes made by Turner from A Classical Tour Through Italy by Revd John Chetwode Eustace. The source was first identified by Cecilia Powell, who also transcribed Turner’s notes in full in the Appendix of her 1984 PhD thesis, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’.1 The inscription is repeated here with only minor variations from her text:
Benventum on the Calore Triumphal Arch to Trajan ^ inferior to Ancona ^ | Bridge Cathedral Saracenic Capaccio | Paestum Resina Torre del Greco Pompeii | Nocera, defile of Cava Benedictine abbey | Pincenum view of Salerno Surrentum to the | west Amalfi Vetri 15 Miles Paestum middle | of the Bay Salurnum a mole. Capo d’Amalfi | Punta di Conca Syrenusae Islands 11 Miles from S | now calld Galli Vicenza 6 Miles Mt Alburnus | Evoli Persano royal chase. river Silaris | Paestum back by the Dorians from Doria | a city of Phonicia first called Posetan or Postan | which signifies Neptune first temple. 13 col | side 6. second temple 6. 14 third. 9. 18. | Wall in 5 places and Towers. 1 cottage a farm & Parish | now only Paestum stands in a fertile plain | bounded on the W by the Tyrrhene Sea a | mile on the St by hills Acropoli sits embosomed | north | Bay of Salerno. Subarites the people | who founded Paestum where Greeks. Beyond the | ruins a little stream called Paestana the | hill Acropolis scite of Jupiter Juno Argiva | mouth of the Salaris Stabiae now Castel | di Mare di Stabia Gate of Naples Ponte de | la Maddalena flows the Sebethus. Lake Amsan | nctus. Bank of the Aufidus Mt Vultur
These notes relate to various passages from volume III of Eustace’s text and condense parts of the author’s account of Naples and its environs.2 Many of the sights listed here form subjects in Turner’s sketchbooks, such as the temples at Paestum and the Bay of Salerno, see the Pompeii, Amalfi, Sorrento and Herculaneum sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXXV) and the Naples, Paestum, Rome sketchbook (Tate; Turner Bequest CLXXXVI).
For a general discussion of Turner’s notes from Eustace see the introduction to the sketchbook.

Nicola Moorby
July 2008

1
Powell 1984, p.398–9.
2
John Chetwode Eustace, A Classical Tour Through Italy, London 1815, 3rd edition, vol.II, pp.421–8 and vol.III, pp.76–108.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Notes by Turner from Eustace’s ‘A Classical Tour Through Italy’ c.1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, July 2008, 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-turner-from-eustaces-a-classical-tour-through-italy-r1138779, accessed 26 April 2024.