J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1787-1801 Student and master > Monro School c.1794-8 > Collaborations with Thomas Girtin for Dr ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin A Cypress in the Garden of the Franciscans at Salerno c.1795-7

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin, ‘A Cypress in the Garden of the Franciscans at Salerno’ c.1795-7
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Thomas Girtin 1775–1802
A Cypress in the Garden of the Franciscans at Salerno c.1795–7
D36530
Turner Bequest CCCLXXV 9
Pencil and grey and blue-grey wash on white wove paper, 335 x 193 mm
Stamped in black ‘CCCLXXV – 9’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Provenance:
Probably commissioned by Dr Thomas Monro
Monro’s posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 26–28 June and 1–2 July 1833 (day and lot number not known)
Bought by or on behalf of Turner
The pencil work is by Girtin. This was copied from a sketch by John Robert Cozens (1752–1797) in Beckford Sketchbook III, p.9, titled ‘Cypress in the garden of the Franciscans | near eight hundred years old | at Salerno’ and dated ‘Sept 22 1782’ (Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, D1975.6.8/9).1 A finished watercolour of this subject by J.R. Cozens was auctioned at Christie’s, London, 17 November 2005 (45), and acquired by the late London dealer Andrew Wyld.
1
Bell and Girtin 1935, p.59 under no.268; Charles Nugent, British Watercolours in the Whitworth Art Gallery, the University of Manchester: A Summary Catalogue of Drawings and Watercolours by Artists Born before 1880, London and Manchester 2003, p.94, reproduced.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in black-brown ink ‘Left out by mistake | Belongs I think to AB. 157. Box C’, and in a ?later hand ‘118’.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Cypress in the Garden of the Franciscans at Salerno c.1795–7 by Joseph Mallord William Turner, Thomas Girtin’, catalogue entry, April 2012, 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-thomas-girtin-a-cypress-in-the-garden-of-the-franciscans-at-r1141276, accessed 19 April 2024.