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 > Turin, Como, Lugarno, Maggiore ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner Lake Como, from the Heights above Menaggio 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Lake Como, from the Heights above Menaggio’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Recto:
Lake Como, from the Heights above Menaggio 1819
D14276
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 68
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 186 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘68’ top right and ‘284’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXIV 68’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
Federico Crimi has identified the subject of this sketch as a view of Lake Como from the curving road which leads to the heights above the village of Menaggio.1 The view looks east across the lake towards the village of Varenna on the opposite shore. Turner appears to have travelled to Menaggio by boat before leaving Lake Como and crossing through the hills by the Porlezza road, in order to reach Lake Lugano.2 Similar views can be found on folio 69 verso (D14277; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 68a). Preparatory notes pertaining to the route can be found within the Italian Guide Book sketchbook (see Tate D13961; Turner Bequest CLXXII 16).

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

1
Crimi 2007, p.28 note 33.
2
Ibid., p.28.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Lake Como, from the Heights above Menaggio 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, January 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-lake-como-from-the-heights-above-menaggio-r1142797, accessed 26 April 2024.