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 on a Rock c.1828-43

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘A Ruined ?Italian Castle on a Rock’ c.1828-43
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
A Ruined ?Italian Castle on a Rock c.1828–43
D33959
Turner Bequest CCCXLI 245
Pencil on buff wove paper, 149 x 225 mm
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram towards bottom right
Inscribed in red ink ‘245’ bottom right (now faint)
Inscribed in pencil ‘245’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCCXLI – 245’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The subject, a substantial ruined fortress high above other buildings and trees, is unidentified, but may be Italian; see the Introduction to this section for further brief discussion and dating. The same scene is shown from a different angle in Tate D33960 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 246).
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 ‘427’ bottom left; inscribed by John Ruskin in pencil ‘145 | O’ bottom right; inscribed in pencil ‘244’ (sic) bottom right.

Matthew Imms
February 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘A Ruined ?Italian Castle on a Rock 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-on-a-rock-r1183016, accessed 26 April 2024.