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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8
J.M.W. Turner > 1802-18 Academician and professor > Italianate Landscapes and Classical ... > Colour Studies of Idealised Italianate ... > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, Buildings and a Bridge c.1828-9

Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, Buildings and a Bridge’ c.1828-9
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, Buildings and a Bridge c.1828–9
D25167
Turner Bequest CCLXIII 45
Watercolour on white wove paper, 356 x 508 mm
Watermark ‘Ruse & Turners | 1828’
Blind-stamped with Turner Bequest monogram below centre
Inscribed in red ink ‘45’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CCLXIII – 45’ bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
There seems to be a substantial building on the left, with a smaller one by what appears to be the arch of a low bridge at the centre. Compare several other rapidly executed, muted ‘colour beginnings’ with dark, isolated trees (Tate D25168, D25175, D25208, D25275; Turner Bequest CCLXIII, 46, 53, 86, 153).
D25168 and D25208 are also on 1828 paper,1 while the composition of the former has been linked to the oil painting The Loretto Necklace, painted soon after Turner’s return from his second Italian tour of 1828–9 (Tate N00509).2 He had also been working on watercolours of Italian subjects shortly before the trip.3
1
See Shanes 1997, pp.95, 98.
2
Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984, p.185 no.331, pl.334.
3
See Andrew Wilton, J.M.W. Turner: His Life and Work, Fribourg 1979, p.384 nos.726, 730, 731; also Shanes 1997, p.29
Verso:
Blank; laid down.

Matthew Imms
August 2016

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘An Idealised Italianate Landscape with Trees, Buildings and a Bridge c.1828–9 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, August 2016, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, March 2017, https://www.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-an-idealised-italianate-landscape-with-trees-buildings-and-a-r1185709, accessed 25 April 2024.