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 > Return from Italy Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Studies of the Duomo, the Baptistery and San Giovanni Evangelista, Parma 1820

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Studies of the Duomo, the Baptistery and San Giovanni Evangelista, Parma’ 1820
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 9 Recto:
Studies of the Duomo, the Baptistery and San Giovanni Evangelista, Parma 1820
D16657
Turner Bequest CXCII 9
Pencil on white wove paper, 98 x 128 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘6’ bottom left, descending left-hand edge
Stamped in black ‘CXCII 6’ bottom left, descending left-hand edge
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains sketches of architectural elements seen from Piazza Duomo, the square in front of the Duomo (cathedral) in the city of Parma.1 Bottom left is a study of part of the octagonal façade of the medieval Baptistery (Battistero). The drawing is not precise as Turner has drawn the two orders of loggia from the top of the building and the arched portals from the bottom, but not the middle section which is represented by a triangular symbol pointing upwards. To the right of the Baptistery are studies of the thirteenth-century campanile of the Duomo and the seventeenth-century campanile of the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista (St John the Evangelist), the latter of which stands just behind the eastern end of the Duomo. Finally, the details at top centre represent part of a larger study of the western façade of the Duomo which has spilled over from the opposite sheet of the double-page spread, see folio 8 verso (D16656).
For a general study of all the buildings on Piazza Duomo see folio 5 verso (D16650).

Nicola Moorby
April 2013

1
Partially identified in Powell 1984, p.432.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Studies of the Duomo, the Baptistery and San Giovanni Evangelista, Parma 1820 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, April 2013, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, August 2013, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-studies-of-the-duomo-the-baptistery-and-san-giovanni-r1142556, accessed 26 April 2024.