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 A Mediterranean Sea-Port, with a Lighthouse c.1796

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Mediterranean Sea-Port, with a Lighthouse’ c.1796
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Mediterranean Sea-Port, with a Lighthouse c.1796
D00904
Turner Bequest XXXIII g
Pencil and watercolour on white wove paper, 430 x 557 mm
Stamped in black ‘XXXIII – g’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The pencil work is Turner’s own, and this may be a copy from a print, perhaps after Claude-Joseph Vernet (1714–1789); it is not necessarily related to Turner’s work for Dr Monro. Finberg suggested the identification of the subject as a view of Livorno, or Leghorn, on the west coast of central Italy. This is a well developed, fresh marine study which seems to draw some of its inspiration from Turner’s experience of the south coast of Wales and the Isle of Wight in 1795; see the South Wales and Isle of Wight sketchbooks (Tate; Turner Bequest XXVI, XXIV). The boats and buildings, as well as the precisely delineated lighthouse, are continental, but the figures conform to types that recur in Turner’s drawings of English people in these years.
Verso:
Blank; a few paint smears; not stamped.

Andrew Wilton
April 2012

How to cite

Andrew Wilton, ‘A Mediterranean Sea-Port, with a Lighthouse c.1796 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, 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-a-mediterranean-sea-port-with-a-lighthouse-r1141301, accessed 26 April 2024.