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

As the art historian and Turner scholar Cecilia Powell first identified, the subject of this sketch is the western front of the Duomo (cathedral) in Parma.1 The Romanesque basilica dates from the twelfth century but the wide façade, characterised by a pointed gable roof, three levels of arcaded loggia and a central entrance of three arched portals, was not completed in its present form until the sixteenth century. A small part of the study spills over onto the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, which also contains related drawings of the campanile of the Duomo, the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista and the adjacent Baptistery, see folio 9 (D16657). For a general study of all the buildings on Piazza Duomo see folio 5 verso (D16650).