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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1819-29 Italy and after > Italy c.1828-43 > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner A Ruined ?Italian Castle above a Hill Town c.1828-43

Image 1 of 2
Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Ruined ?Italian Castle above a Hill Town’ c.1828-43
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Ruined ?Italian Castle above a Hill Town c.1828–43
D33958
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 244
Pencil on buff wove paper, 151 x 225 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram bottom right
Inscribed in pencil ‘CCCXLI, 244’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 244’ towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject, an apparently ruined castle perched above a steep hill town with rugged peaks beyond, is unidentified, but may be Italian; see the Introduction to this section for further brief discussion and dating. The loose vertical marks in the foreground may be indications of the trunks of trees through which Turner observed the scene.
Technical notes:
Paper conservator Peter Bower has noted this among numerous examples from Turner Bequest section CCCXLI of quarter sheets of paper with a watermark of letters ‘CS and laurel leaves’, paired with a separate mark of three numbers; they may come from one of the Brescia paper mill in Lombardy, from which there are comparable datable sheets from the 1830s and early 1840s.1
1
See Bower 1999, p.133 and note 1.
Verso:
Blank; inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘446’ bottom left and in pencil 145 | O’ bottom right

Matthew Imms
February 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Ruined ?Italian Castle above a Hill Town c.1828–43 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, February 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, November 2016, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-a-ruined-italian-castle-above-a-hill-town-r1183015, accessed 24 April 2024.