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 > Venice to Ancona Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Arcade to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, with Bologna in the Distance 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The Arcade to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, with Bologna in the Distance’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 38 Recto:
The Arcade to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, with Bologna in the Distance 1819
D14556
Turner Bequest CLXXVI 34
Pencil on white wove paper, 111 x 184 mm
Inscribed by John Ruskin in red ink ‘34’ bottom right (now faint)
Stamped in black ‘CLXXVI – 34’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The view is from about half-way up the arcade leading to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, looking north-east to Bologna, with the Torre Asinelli dominating the city’s skyline. The airiness of the elevated view and the abrupt shift in scale between the foreground and the horizon is emphasised by the tall trees on the brow of the hill, their foliage rhyming visually with a skyful of scudding clouds. Compare the view from within the arcade on folio 39 recto (D14558; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 35).
For Powell’s general comments on Turner’s views of Bologna from a distance and around the Sanctuary (folios 32 verso–39 recto; D14545–D14558; Turner Bequest CLXXVI 28a–35), see under D14545;1 for the arcade and the Sanctuary itself, under folio 42 recto (D14564; CLXXVI 38);2 and for Bologna in general and numerous views on adjacent pages, under folio 24 recto (D14532).

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
See Powell 1984, pp.92, 466 note 110, and Powell 1987, pp.25, 202 note 46.
2
See also Powell 1984, pp.84–6.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Arcade to the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca, with Bologna in the Distance 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.tate.org.uk/art/research-publications/jmw-turner/joseph-mallord-william-turner-the-arcade-to-the-sanctuary-of-the-madonna-di-san-luca-with-r1186292, accessed 16 April 2024.