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 > Ancona to Rome Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Osimo, with the Campanile of San Marco on the Left 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Osimo, with the Campanile of San Marco on the Left’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 4 Verso:
Osimo, with the Campanile of San Marco on the Left 1819
D14660
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 4 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
After a sustained period of travel along the east coast from Rimini, Turner’s route towards Rome turned inland at Ancona and began to follow a south-westerly course towards the Apennine Mountains. Many of the urban settlements in this part of Italy were built upon high ground and Turner made a number of sketches of the hilltop towns and cities he glimpsed from his carriage as he travelled through the landscape of the Marche region of Italy. The order of these drawings within the beginning of this sketchbook does not appear to follow a strict geographical sequence.
Cecilia Powell has identified the subject of this sketch as the town of Osimo, as seen from the road from Ancona to the east. The prominent tower on the left is the campanile of the Church of San Marco. In the foreground is the figure of a woman carrying a basket on her head. Turner sketches her in more detail on the next page, see folio 5 (D14661).

Nicola Moorby
November 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Osimo, with the Campanile of San Marco on the Left 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, November 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-osimo-with-the-campanile-of-san-marco-on-the-left-r1138822, accessed 23 April 2024.