Joseph Mallord William Turner The Piazza del Nettuno, Bologna, with the Fountain of Neptune, Palazzo d'Accursio (Palazzo Communale) and the Palazzo del Podestà 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 27 Recto:
The Piazza del Nettuno, Bologna, with the Fountain of Neptune, Palazzo d’Accursio (Palazzo Communale) and the Palazzo del Podestà 1819
D14538
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 26d
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 26d
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 184 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘pa[...]’ towards top left, ascending diagonally on building, and ‘W’ top right, on tower
Inscribed in pencil ‘clxxvi.26d’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI – 26d’ towards bottom right
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘pa[...]’ towards top left, ascending diagonally on building, and ‘W’ top right, on tower
Inscribed in pencil ‘clxxvi.26d’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI – 26d’ towards bottom right
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
References
1909
A.J. Finberg, A Complete Inventory of the Drawings of the Turner Bequest, London 1909, vol.I, p.517, CLXXVI 26d, as ‘Palazzo del Podestà, and other buildings’.
1984
Cecilia Powell, ‘Turner on Classic Ground: His Visits to Central and Southern Italy and Related Paintings and Drawings’, unpublished Ph.D thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London 1984, pp.82–3, 462 note 68.
2008
James Hamilton, ‘Turner e l’Italia’ in Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner e l’Italia, exhibition catalogue, Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara 2008, pp.43, 90 note 22, as a Bologna subject.
2009
James Hamilton, ‘Turner’s Route to Rome’ in Hamilton, Nicola Moorby, Christopher Baker and others, Turner & Italy, exhibition catalogue, National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh 2009, pp.42, 150 note 22, as a Bologna subject.
The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Palazzo del Podestà, and other buildings’): ‘Piazza del Nettuno looking North’.1 The viewpoint is the Piazza Maggiore, with the medieval former town hall, the Palazzo d’Accursio, on the left with its classical doorway and balcony. The Madonna and Child statue shown high up in the foreground survives, but the façade below now features an arcade rather than the more complex features Turner records. A little further on to the right is the medieval and Renaissance Palazzo del Podestà; the side facing the Piazza del Nettuno also appears to have undergone substantial changes. Beyond the flat-topped tower in the distance is the Cathedral of San Pietro.
At the centre is the elaborate Mannerist Fountain of Neptune, its base with numerous bronze mythological figures supporting another of the Roman god Neptune, nude with his trident attribute and resting his right foot on a small dolphin. The figures are by Giambologna (1529–1608), and Cecilia Powell has noted that the fountain occasioned a pencil addition by Turner, ‘by J of Bol good figure Ex legs’, to his concise ink notes on Bologna among other places from the 1815 edition of J.C. Eustace’s A Classical Tour through Italy in the contemporary Italian Guidebook sketchbook2 (Tate D13938; Turner Bequest CLXXII 4, transcribed and catalogued here by Nicola Moorby; see also the Introduction to the present sketchbook). Powell has suggested ‘Ex’ indicates ‘excellent’,3 although ‘except’ might be an alternative, as Moorby has observed; nevertheless, the ‘good’ clearly ‘expresses definite approbation, a rare feature in Turner’s rare notes on works of art in Italy’.4
The fountain appears again on folios 28 recto and 29 recto (D14335, D14540; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 26a, 26f). It also featured in one of two small thumbnail sketches of the city from engravings by John Warwick Smith in the Italian Guidebook sketchbook (Tate D13963; Turner Bequest CLXXII 17). Turner later drew another Giambologna fountain in Florence, in the Rome and Florence sketchbook (Tate D16600; Turner Bequest CXCI 68a). For general remarks on Bologna and Turner’s numerous views on adjacent pages, see under folio 24 recto (D14532).
In his 1909 Inventory, Finberg noted of the pages he designated Turner Bequest CLXXVI 26a–h (D14535–D14542): ‘The following four leaves were found loose, but appear to belong here.’5 Their presence as now bound at this stage of the sketchbook affects its foliation sequence compared to Finberg’s numbering; see the concordance in the Introduction. See also the notes there and under what appears to be a slight continuation of the present drawing on the page opposite, folio 26 verso (D14536), now designated as Turner Bequest CLXXVI 26b but possibly intended by Finberg as 26a.
Technical notes:
A 17 mm horizontal tear towards the bottom of the outer edge has been repaired.
Matthew Imms
March 2017
How to cite
Matthew Imms, ‘The Piazza del Nettuno, Bologna, with the Fountain of Neptune, Palazzo d’Accursio (Palazzo Communale) and the Palazzo del Podestà 1819 by Joseph Mallord William Turner’, catalogue entry, March 2017, in David Blayney Brown (ed.), J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours, Tate Research Publication, July 2017, https://www