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 Four Views from the Road between Menaggio and Porlezza; Including Two of Lake Como and Tow of the Val Menaggio 1819

Image 1 of 2
  • Enhanced image
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘Four Views from the Road between Menaggio and Porlezza; Including Two of Lake Como and Tow of the Val Menaggio’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 69 Verso:
Four Views from the Road between Menaggio and Porlezza; Including Two of Lake Como and Tow of the Val Menaggio 1819
D14277
Turner Bequest CLXXIV 68 a
Pencil on white wove paper, 186 x 111 mm
Inscribed by the artist in pencil ‘olive’, ‘Como’ and ‘Menaggio’ within top sketch, ‘Como’ within second sketch from top, and ‘Boy with Blue Cap carry [H...p]’ and ‘Cardano’ bottom of third sketch from top
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
This page contains four distinct sketches, all of which were drawn on the road to Porlezza from the heights above the village of Menaggio.1 Turner took this road in order to cross from Lake Como to Lake Lugano and Federico Crimi has noted that the route was served by a regular diligence.2 Turner also made preparatory notes pertaining to the journey within the Italian Guide Book sketchbook (see Tate D13961; Turner Bequest CLXXII 16).
The uppermost vista depicts a view looking south east across Lake Como towards the peninsula of Bellagio. Turner has annotated the sketch with the position of Menaggio on the western shore. Second from the top meanwhile is a study looking across to the village of Varenna on the eastern shore. A similar view can be found on folio 69 (D14276; Turner Bequest CLXXIV 68). The position of the sun in this composition indicates that Turner was travelling in the morning.
The remaining two sketches on the sheet depict views looking in the opposite direction, west through the Val Menaggio towards Porlezza. The inscription within the third vista from the top records the subject as the tiny village of Cardano, and here the artist has also noted the incidental detail of a ‘Boy’ wearing a ‘Blue Cap’.

Nicola Moorby
January 2013

1
See Crimi 2007, p.28 note 33.
2
Federico Crimi, unpublished notes. See also Federico Crimi, ‘J.M.W. Turner e il Verbano: Repertorio’, in Verbanus, no.30, 2009, pp.37–8.

How to cite

Nicola Moorby, ‘Four Views from the Road between Menaggio and Porlezza; Including Two of Lake Como and Tow of the Val 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-four-views-from-the-road-between-menaggio-and-porlezza-r1142798, accessed 25 April 2024.