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 Two Sketches of Narni with the Approach to the Porta Ternana 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Two Sketches of Narni with the Approach to the Porta Ternana’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 59 Recto:
Two Sketches of Narni with the Approach to the Porta Ternana 1819
D14767
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 59
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘Narni’ bottom left
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘59’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVII 59’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Following the Via Flaminia south-west from Terni, the next place of interest on Turner’s route to Rome was Narni, a small hilltop town approximately seven miles away. This page contains two sketches on the approach from the east. At the top is a panoramic distant view of the town with the church and castle of San Girolamo on the right and the eastern side of Narni on the left. The view continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 58 verso (D14766). At the bottom is a closer view of the eastern point of entry to the town, the Porta Ternana, an imposing fifteenth-century gate set into the walls encircling Narni with cylindrical towers flanking the entrance.
In the bottom left-hand corner of the page is part of a landscape sketch from the previous page, see folio 58 verso (D14766). Turner has inscribed with the view the name of the town.

Nicola Moorby
November 2008

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Two Sketches of Narni with the Approach to the Porta Ternana 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-two-sketches-of-narni-with-the-approach-to-the-porta-ternana-r1138930, accessed 24 April 2024.