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 > Milan to Venice Sketchbook > Artwork

Joseph Mallord William Turner The West End, Roof and Lantern Spire of Milan Cathedral; Details of Façades 1819

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Joseph Mallord William Turner, ‘The West End, Roof and Lantern Spire of Milan Cathedral; Details of Façades’ 1819
Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 3 Recto:
The West End, Roof and Lantern Spire of Milan Cathedral; Details of Façades 1819
D14329
Turner Bequest CLXXV 3
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Partial watermark ‘lee | 13’
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘3’ top right and ‘300’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXV 3’ bottom right
 
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Commencement of a sketch’): ‘of West front Duomo, Milan’.1 The slight main drawing appears to be from a similar position near the arcade on the north side of the square west of the cathedral to that adopted for the drawing on folios 1 verso–2 recto (D14327–D14328), while the thumbnail elevation of adjoining façades may show buildings on the south side.
At the top left is an extension completing the profile of the tall lantern spire, with the ‘Madonnina’ statue of the Virgin Mary (see also folio 15 recto; D14347). See under D14328 for other Milan views.

Matthew Imms
March 2017

1
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.512.

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The West End, Roof and Lantern Spire of Milan Cathedral; Details of Façades 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-west-end-roof-and-lantern-spire-of-milan-cathedral-r1186443, accessed 25 April 2024.