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

ISBN 978-1-84976-386-8

Joseph Mallord William Turner The Crossing of Milan Cathedral, from the North 1819

Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775–1851
Folio 6 Recto:
The Crossing of Milan Cathedral, from the North 1819
D14335
Turner Bequest CLXXV 6
Pencil on white wove paper, 112 x 185 mm
Inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘[?7]’ below centre
Inscribed by John Ruskin in blue ink ‘6’ top right and ‘300’ bottom right
Stamped in black ‘CLXXV 6’ 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 (‘Part of Milan Cathedral’): ‘Distant view of cupola o c’.1 The cathedral’s lantern spire over the crossing is shown in the most detail, with some of the tall pinnacles over the nave roof to the right, suggesting that the view is from the north, along a street shown on old maps in an area where the street plan has since changed east of the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping arcades.
See under folio 2 recto (D14328) for other Milan views.
1
Undated MS note by C.F. Bell (died 1966) in copy of Finberg 1909, Tate Britain Prints and Drawings Room, I, p.512.
Technical notes:
There is a prominent finger print near the centre of the top edge.

Matthew Imms
March 2017

How to cite

Matthew Imms, ‘The Crossing of Milan Cathedral, from the North 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-crossing-of-milan-cathedral-from-the-north-r1186448, accessed 28 March 2024.