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 Borghetto from the South, with a Distant View of the Ponte Felice 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Borghetto from the South, with a Distant View of the Ponte Felice’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 73 Verso:
Borghetto from the South, with a Distant View of the Ponte Felice 1819
D14796
Turner Bequest CLXXVII 73 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 110 x 186 mm
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Beyond Narni, Turner’s route to Rome continued south towards the next two post stages, Otricoli and Borghetto, where the Via Flaminia crossed the River Tiber at the Ponte Felice.1 This sketch depicts the village and fortress of Borghetto from the road to the south, looking back towards the bridge and the plain of the Tiber. The sketch continues on the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 74 (D14797). The composition of Turner’s drawing recalls an engraving of the same subject from John ‘Warwick’ Smith’s Select Views in Italy. Turner had made a small pen-and-ink copy of this illustration in the Italian Guide Book sketchbook (see Tate D13964; Turner Bequest CLXXII 18, second from bottom right). A similar panorama can be found on folios 74 verso–75 (D14798–D14799). For a general discussion of Borghetto see folio 73 (D14795).

Nicola Moorby
November 2008

1
The post stage itinerary was published in Reichard’s Italy, London 1818, pp.301 and 330. See Turner’s own copy (Tate, Turner Bequest CCCLXVII).

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Borghetto from the South, with a Distant View of the Ponte Felice 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-borghetto-from-the-south-with-a-distant-view-of-the-ponte-r1138959, accessed 26 April 2024.